On the road to a more sustainable future for all

According to the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainability Development Report statistics (United Nations 2024b), Finland ranks as number one in terms of the overall sustainability performance of all 193 UN Member States. While this achievement seems desirable and worthy, it does not mean that we can rest assured that we are doing well and are on the road to a more sustainable future.

For example, we may think that we are taking sustainability actions, however, there is only a slight increase in Finland’s overall sustainability performance over the past 25 years (United Nations 2024b).

In this article, we reflect on what sustainability statistics tell us when diving in more deeply, and what we can do at Haaga-Helia for a more sustainable future for all.

United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations published 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as its Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The SDGs were adopted by all UN member states in 2015 as an outline of shared aim for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, and both now and in the future. (United Nations 2015.) Essentially, they are considered as an urgent call for action together by all member countries.

The 17 SDGs include the following: (1) No poverty, (2) Zero hunger, (3) Good health and well-being, (4) Quality education, (5) Gender equality, (6) Clean water and sanitation, (7) Affordable and clean energy, (8) Decent work and economic growth, (9) Industry, innovation and infrastructure, (10) Reduced inequalities, (11) Sustainable cities and communities, (12) Responsible production and consumption, (13) Climate action, (14) Life below water, (15) Life on land, (16) Peace, justice and strong institutions, (17) Partnerships for the goals. (United Nations 2015.)

UN publishes the Sustainable Development Report (United Nations 2024b) and Sustainable Development Goals Report (United Nations 2024a) annually to provide the most current data on a global level and worldwide trends in developments. The aim is also to track and rank the performance of all UN member countries on the SDGs. The key findings of the latest SDG report published in 2024 show, for example, that there is still little progress on the SDG targets globally since 2020: on average, only 17 percent of the SDG targets for 2030 are on track and the remaining 83 percent are showing limited or no progress or even regression. (United Nations 2024a.)

In particular, the SDG targets related to food are off-track. For example, it is estimated that 733 million people experience hunger in 2023, and that 600 million people will still suffer from hunger by 2030, while obesity is increasing. In addition, targets related to land systems lag significantly behind; greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry, and other land use account for almost a 25 percent of total annual global greenhouse gas emissions. (United Nations 2024b.)

The progress and pace of progress in terms of achieving the SDGs varies significantly across countries. Nordic countries continue to lead in the statistics and are at the forefront of achieving the SDGs, while the progress in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has lately been significantly better than the world average (United Nations 2024b). Critical for progress is the development in each country, but also these global challenges require global cooperation.

Finland’s sustainable development performance

The relative sustainable development performance in Finland has been excellent among the UN member countries (United Nations 2024b). Moreover, when looking in detail into Finland’s statistics, we can see that the SDGs of No poverty in any of its forms everywhere (SDG 1) and Affordable and reliable, sustainable and modern energy for everyone (SDG 7) are on the path to be achieved by 2030 (United Nations 2024c).

However, at the same time the statistics reveal that there are major challenges in terms of achieving the goals Eliminating hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), Responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) as well as Climate action for climate change and its effects (SDG 13) (United Nations 2024c).

In particular, indicators related to electronic waste, production-based air pollution, air pollution and nitrogen emissions associated with imports, and non-recycled municipal waste have been facing major challenges or are even on a reverse path, while production of nitrogen emissions and export of plastic waste have been stagnant (SDG 12). Furthermore, on climate action (SDG 13), the indicators also show major challenges or even a reverse trend. (United Nations 2024c.)

The statistics suggest that progress in achieving the SDGs in Finland (and globally) has been stagnant since 2020 (United Nations 2024b). In comparison to other countries, a more detailed look into the Finnish data on SDGs is somewhat surprising. While SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) has been particularly challenging both globally and in Finland, the other major challenges in Finland, Responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and Climate action (SDG 13), have not been globally most off-track (United Nations 2024c). Rather, it seems that we need to pay even more attention to the latter two SDGs in Finland.

Haaga-Helia’s RDI impact vision for a sustainable future

It is of utmost importance to Haaga-Helia that our RDI activities have broad impact on both business and society. It is also the role of Haaga-Helia as a university of applied sciences within the Finnish higher education system.

To both manage and develop the impact that we have on a more sustainable future for all, we created and published an impact vision for our RDI activities in 2024 (Koivisto & Huttunen 2024). This is the first time we specify the areas in which we want to achieve impact with our RDI activities. The aim of the vision is to support all haagahelians engaged in RDI work at both project and at organizational levels.

The four main themes of the Haaga-Helia RDI impact vision are: A human being boldly creating new solutions, Well-being and learning at work, Successful and responsible business and Sustainable future. The RDI impact vision is illustrated in Picture 1 below.

Picture 1. Haaga-Helia RDI impact vision (Koivisto & Huttunen 2024)

The Haaga-Helia RDI impact vision is well in line with the Agenda 2030 published by the Rector’s Conference of the Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (Arene Ry 2020). The agenda brings forth the role of applied research and development and innovation activities in making a difference in ecological, social, cultural, and economic terms. As a UAS, our mission is to increase our handprint by developing the impact that our RDI activities have on business and society, while simultaneously decreasing our footprint and becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Hence, our joint mission as the community of Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland is to facilitate the needed changes and impact to ensure a sustained future. The Haaga-Helia RDI impact vision brings this to life in terms of how we aim to contribute to the Vision 2030 with our RDI activities.

Linking Haaga-Helia’s impact vision and RDI work to the Sustainable Development Goals

The Haaga-Helia RDI impact vision is strongly linked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the broad level, the RDI impact vision states that we carry out societally impactful RDI work in our networks to support in creating a sustainable future and a good life for all. We also measure the impact of our RDI impact work on the sustainable future in terms of which SDGs the RDI work projects affect and how.

Indeed, at Haaga-Helia, we have been collecting data on the impacts of our RDI projects on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals since 2022. The collected data shows that our projects have a clear impact on all SDGs (see Figure 1). In terms of numbers, the most significant share of our RDI projects have an impact on the goal Equal and high-quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for everyone (SDG 4). Over the past two years, more than 60 percent of our projects have contributed to this goal.

In addition, the goals Promoting inclusive sustainable economic growth, productive employment and decent jobs (SDG 8), Healthy life and well-being for all ages (SDG 3), Achieving gender equality and strengthening the rights of women and girls (SDG5) and Reducing inequality within and between countries (SDG 10) have also been on the agenda of several projects: depending on the year, around 30 to 55 percent of our projects have contributed to reaching these goals.

Figure 1. The percentage of Haaga-Helia’s research and development projects contributing to UN’s SDGs (years 2022 and 2023).

A better tomorrow requires constant work and collaboration

Haaga-Helia is committed to work for a better tomorrow for all, and our RDI impact vision is one guide in this endeavor. In our work, we specialize in business, service industry, technological solutions and higher education pedagogy. Thus, it is natural for us to produce solutions for the UN SDGs that are close to our profile – specifically ensuring equal and high-quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for everyone is something that is our core competence.

When assessing the impact of our project portfolio in the recent years, it seems that we have been able to generate results that improve the world we live in, particularly in our profile areas. Our research and development projects are typically developmental in nature and, thus, the results can be quickly utilized in businesses and society. Our RDI activities also focus on the goals that we as a Finnish UAS have committed to: Quality education (SDG 4) and Reducing inequalities (SDG 10) (Knuuttila et al. 2022).

However, there is still a need for improvement. For example, as was shown earlier, reducing hunger and malnutrition (SDG 2, Zero Hunger) has been particularly challenging both globally and in Finland. At Haaga-Helia, around 5 o 11 percent of our projects worked for this goal during the past two years. In addition, Finland has fallen behind in Responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and Climate action (SDG 13). Our RDI projects reflect this situation: only 7 to 9 percent of the projects targeted climate change. However, responsible consumption was promoted by over 22 percent of the projects in 2023.

Nevertheless, more actions are needed to improve the situation in Finland and globally. The challenge is that the SDGs are fundamentally interdependent: for example, actions for ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with actions that are developed to facilitate responsible consumption and production, improve health and education, reduce inequality, and facilitate economic growth, at the same time as tackling climate change.

It is clear that a better tomorrow requires relentless work and global collaboration with all parties of the society.

Picture: Shutterstock