Key words: ​2030 Agenda for sustainable development, SDG12, Sustainable consumption and production

 
Sue Riddlestone, Chief Executive at Bioregional and Nancy Gillis, Chief Executive of Green Electronics Council, will be attending the annual High Level Political Forum held by the United Nations in New York this week where governments from all around the world gather to communicate their progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
 
In September 2015, 150 world leaders committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the next 15 years with the intention of combatting climate change, reducing poverty and inequality whilst creating a better quality of life for us all.
 
Transform Together, a multi-stakeholder partnership, focuses on improving the sustainability of smartphones, supporting SDG 12, and achieving sustainable consumption and production. Transform Together calls on governments, policymakers, industry, civil society organisations, researchers and consumers to work together to improve the sustainability of the lifecycle of smartphones, from: the design, raw materials, production use, product life extension and end-of-life options for smartphones
 
Sue and Nancy’s attendance at the HLPF will create an opportunity to communicate Transform Together’s aims and make its work more widely known, as well encouraging new nations to engage with the partnership. Transform Together acts as a stepping stone for countries to achieve their national targets and policies along the pathway towards achieving the 2030 Goals. 

​This year’s Forum focused on the next era of circular economy and how to scale up the transition by spreading new technologies and making regulatory changes – a prime setting to start discussions about Transform Together’s vision for 2030.

​Our partners Closing the Loop, the Finnish government and Dutch government spoke at several sessions to share their inspiring circular economy solutions. In addition, Bioregional hosted a ‘campfire discussion’ to explore ideas to create a circular IT sector. This session was attended by Antonia Gawel, Head of the Circular Economy Initiative at the World Economic Forum, Paul Ekins from London School of Economics and co-chair of the UN’s Global Environmental Outlook report, in addition to other academics and investors. 

There was a strong presence of Transform Together partners attending with Sue Riddlestone, Johanna Tilkanen and Florence Best from Bioregional; Annika Overodder from TCO Development; Joost de Kluijver from Closing the Loop; Jean-Pierre Schweitzer from the European Environment Bureau; Jachym Judl, Taina Nikula and Annika Lindblom from the Finnish government; alongside Dutch environment Minister Stientje van Veldhoven. 

The world’s governments are gathering in Nairobi, Kenya from 11 to 15 March 2019 for the bi-annual UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment. Transform Together will be there to promote our global partnership on sustainable smartphones and ICT and get more governments to join our initiative.

The inspiring real-life examples  show how things can be done better, including:

• designing long-lasting products
• selling phones as a service rather a product
• second-hand laptops made as good as new
• responsible raw material sourcing initiatives
• e-waste legislation in India improving livelihoods in the informal sector
• ground-up workers’ rights monitoring
• progressive ecolabels
• decarbonising ICT supply chains
• circular ICT procurement
• and innovative offsetting schemes.

 
By addressing entire product lifecycles, these case studies show that in many ways we already know how to be sustainable - but the brilliant organisations and individuals behind them cannot change the course alone. For the system reset to happen, everyone needs to get on board.

Pick an action from their ‘keys to success’ or ‘next steps’ that you could take in your own sphere of influence, or send the idea to someone else who you know could take it forward to help achieve our 2030 vision.

​Following this, we are continuing to update our 2030 vision for sustainable smartphones and ICT, making sure it is a collaborative piece that everyone at Transform Together can sign up to. We have also started working on a roadmap to draw out the practical goals and actions that are required to achieve our vision.