by-products in the form of pollution and waste, hence
it requires preservation , thus ensuring adequate
regulations are put in place and enforced in each
sector. At the same time, it is adequate income and
investment that provides the resources required to
support improvements in people’s lives, socially and
economically, so the general population must have
access to an adequate income.
The complexities around integration of the individual,
often competing or conflicting, Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), their respective targets
and setting out potential scenarios that combine
measures seeking to achieve the triple bottom line
of economic development, environmental consideration
and social inclusion is a complicated matter. The
negative impacts and trade-offs within any given
strategic approach would therefore require consideration
together with how to mitigate the negative
effects of distribution among other issues.
Through transformative improvements across the
spheres of social development, economic growth
and environmental protection, achieving sustainable
development, is technically and practically possible,
subject to being based on the principles of economic
progress and its convergence with living standards,
global support and enforcement, as well as a successful
decoupling of economic progress from environmental
use and degradation. The aforementioned
requires an urgent shift from the business as usual
scenario, towards sustained mobilisation of actors
around a shared framework.
In the upcoming issues of OTWO magazine, we
will apply the principles set above to specific areas
within Gibraltar in order to demonstrate how the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be
applied locally, whilst contributing towards achieving
the global agenda. We encourage all readers to
contact the magazine’s Editor, Vanessa Byrne by sending
emails entitled: Planning Vision: Welcome to
the Future telling us which areas in Gibraltar would
you like to see transformed and why. Each month we
will randomly choose one of the suggested areas and
transform it into a little progressive haven to help us
all in envisioning what Gibraltar’s future could look
like if we all adopted a forward-thinking attitude and
hear the call to action echoed worldwide.
OTWO 11 / JUNE 2020 37