 Welcome everybody. I see that you're joining us and this is the first ISD, ICSD speaker series sustainable development leaders in the workforce. This is the first time we're doing it really in celebration of the 10th, the 10th. A year anniversary of ICSD so we're really happy that you're here and we're happy to introduce and present the first speaker who is Dr. Jolene Shoemaker from the University of California Davis. And she is the director of global engagement at that university but she has a really interesting background she has her she got her JD at Georgetown University. I just learned spent 20 years in Washington DC. She has her master's as well as security studies from Georgetown University and her BA from political science at the University of California San Diego so I am sure that she will be able to just share a lot based on her experiences her education and and you know on the future. In terms of the workforce and what we can, you know, things to take away what we can do in that field so without much ado over to Dr. Shoemaker. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me and inviting me to this. This great initiative. So I do have some slides that I'm going to use just to share as I'm talking but we talked a little bit about, you know, maybe I would be interesting I know there, there are a lot of students that are on this webinar about, you know, their career paths and interest areas and so I'll just spend maybe a couple of minutes just telling you a little bit more about my path because I think it's really important to realize that there are so many different entry points and different choices that we make through our career to pursue things that are meaningful for us. So I did graduate with my advanced degrees from Georgetown. I'm at University of California Davis which I'll talk about back in California but I did spend about two decades out in Washington DC. After I graduated with my degrees from Georgetown and I've kind of weaved in and out of different sectors. I started out actually in government working on diplomacy and human rights, and then as everything is interconnected and the way that we look at foreign policy and national security then I also worked, I worked both on for the US Department of State and the Department of Defense, looking at various issues on the agenda on peace and security and human rights and then decided that I really wanted to work for, really wanted to work in the non governmental organization space civil society so I spent quite a few years working on pressing policymakers from the other side so I was, I was in the policymaking space and then moved outside to try to push from the external side, specifically for the women peace and security agenda. And so if you're interested in gender equality, the gender equality aspects of peace and security I recommend that you look into that agenda that's been gaining a lot of momentum. It's been a long time in the past 20 years. So I was privileged to work with a lot of a lot of other activists and advocates and policymakers as well to move that forward. And now I'm back in California and really excited with what I'm able to work on with colleagues at University of California Davis, specifically focused on how we're engaging with sustainable development goals. So I will square share screen and have a some slides to share which I hope is helpful as I kind of talk through some of the things that the organizers of this session were interested and thought that you would all be interested in hearing about hearing a little bit more about. Oh, and my screen share I have this happen periodically. There we go. Hopefully everyone can see it. So I thought it would be interesting for you all. Probably many of you are affiliated right now with universities, completing degrees that would be interesting for you all to know something about the higher education landscape and the UN sustainable development goals. And so really the UN sustainable development goals, as many of you probably already know, was agreed to was an agenda that was agreed to by all nations in the world in 2015. And it's a very ambitious agenda that is really gaining so much momentum around the world at every level, and in every sector in terms of being a really important framework for us to collaborate. So the universities around the world have been increasingly interested as well in how to effectively engage with this agenda. And this agenda really does challenge universities to think differently about not only their strategies, their global engagement, how they're structured, but also just how they do the work of research and teaching and service and their own operations on campus and really trying to be more transformative and give students the opportunities that are really needed to prepare for the world that we live in and the challenges that we face. So, there's also a really interesting SDSN as, as you all know, is, you know, featured here as a as a co host to this session and there are emerging global networks, such as SDSN which I highly recommend. So, I've been privileged to be a part of part of this network for the last couple of years and actively involved, but these international networks are really important to get involved with, especially now as we are kind of in a hybrid situation with not always in person and often virtual, it's really important to be a part of networks where you can connect with people in different ways and not just through traveling to conferences and so forth. Also, within the university space, there's just one of the challenges I think but it's also an opportunity is that there's very, there are very few models about how to incorporate global goals, the SDGs, these frameworks. And because there's very few models, many universities are kind of in this very open or creative space thinking about what they could do differently, how they can better support what the students need. It's a really exciting time actually on the unit in the university sector and it's a time when I think students have a lot of influence and voice, in terms of how they would like to see universities being very active and being very out front and sharing knowledge and giving those opportunities for leadership development is a really important time right now to be engaged. So, you all probably know something about the UN Sustainable Development Goals or you wouldn't be at this conference but, but it is really I have a couple of important things that I always talk about are that are striking to me as really special important about the UN Sustainable Development Goals So, we know we've seen many times the 17 boxes we we've become very familiar with seeing this in a variety of contexts and these are really important the boxes are a great visual for us to just be reminded of the topics that are encompassed in this agenda, and to be able to take our own work very clearly to one or more, usually more, because they are so interlinked SDGs so it is a really important visual, but it is also important to realize what's behind that that in 2015 when all the United Nations member states agreed to the sustainable development goals that that is a really powerful statement in itself it's very difficult to get international consensus, and to get international consensus on something this ambitious with this many topics and, and, and goals is really quite powerful and we can use it to advocate for, for the change that we would like to see on an effective way. And I think it's also just really important that they're intersectional and indivisible and this is, this is really important in the university context but it's also important as you all are working within your disciplines and working more closely in your expertise areas to work across that hasn't always been the case. And I think that it these complex issues, there's just really no other way to solve them so we have to figure out ways to come together across our expertise and discipline areas and to really think how these things are interlinked and how one decision on one thing can have multiple impacts across. And of course, the SDGs covered three dimensions of development so we need to understand it's not just environmental environmental is key, but so is social and economic, so that they fit together, and having that kind of holistic thinking is really going to be important for the future. And this is the piece I always tell people and students to look to if you're interested in working with the UN sustainable development goals. Don't just look at the boxes don't just look at the targets and indicators actually read the resolution from 2015 or at least the first few pages of it, because it will tell you what the principles, what the goals are centered on and that they're centered on three dimensions really leave no one behind, meaning that we can't make decisions that are going to lead populations and communities behind that human rights and gender equality are really central so making sure that we're centering our work on on those principles, I think is really important and again it doesn't always happen, because oftentimes when we're focused on a certain issue set that expertise necessarily that or that discipline has not been as a steeped in some of the tools analytical tools around human rights and gender equality. I'm, I'm here at University of California Davis, we're comprehensive tier one research university. And you can see from the map on the left if you don't know where you see Davis is it's sort of the near the top of Northern California, sort of in the middle. And you can see that we're part of the University of California system so you can see from that map the other campuses and you may be familiar with some of these other places as well. In the last few years, I've had the privilege of coordinating our work on global engagement and the SDGs, and we've really started to focus as a, as a university and in our global affairs office and our other offices on the SDGs for several reasons. It really this agenda aligns with our strategic priorities as university are many areas of strength that we have our history but also our priorities on interdisciplinary approaches so looking at issues in an interdisciplinary manner is really important to the university and it's really, this is an agenda that helps us really do strengthen that. And then we have a mission to improve the lives of individuals families and communities around the campus because we are a land grant university in the United States so that's a really important part of our identity and our mission and the SDGs directly connect with that. And we found that it's really important to start bridging local and global concerns. So in my career path when historically, at least in the United States, if you worked on foreign policy or you worked on international issues, global issues, you weren't working on domestic United States or local issues in the United States, it was very separate right as career paths and as focus areas. And I think we're starting to understand that these problems are very common. We do have our own unique context where we live and work and what we're experiencing in our communities, but there's so much that we're that we actually share in terms of the challenges and so we found this to be just tremendous potential to bridge those concerns and when we come to bridge, we come up with very innovative and interesting solutions so it's a great area to be in. If you can, if you can be part of that bridging. A little bit in case you're interested of how we've kind of approached it because the reason I mentioned the strategy at UC Davis is just that this has been a few years, at least a large portion of my professional life has been really focused on how do we engage more in this agenda in the university campus and and I've been spending a lot of my time thinking about it with and collaborating with others on our campus and worldwide to listen and hear and share so I've been with others around campus working a lot on raising awareness and finding ways for for students and faculty and others to get involved, certainly supporting the next generation so that we've been building a lot for students and trying to hear what students are interested in what's resonating with them about the problems that they're seeing around the world. And then collaborating really closely with partners and networks around the world collaboration is really central to solving these problems but professionally as you all look out to your careers. It's one of those things that is a skill set that that is really important to build collaboration skill sets and partnerships so that it's not easy to do effective collaborations and partnerships it takes a lot of work. And it takes a lot of other skills like listening and, you know, and compromising and, you know, being aware of a different where people, different people sit and what they're concerned about. And then tracking our progress so we started this. I'll tell you a little bit about a huge project that I worked on but we started this recently with how can we track our progress at UC Davis. So that's a little bit about what I've been working on. So just a couple of examples, I bring them up because professionally I think it's really important to take on opportunities to do something new. When you can that hasn't been done before it can be really intimidating. It can be a little bit scary we're all afraid of the risk of failure, but this is the only way we push ourselves and we push our institutions to think differently and to do things in a more transformative way, as the SDGs are are intended to be. If the way we were all doing things worked, we wouldn't need the SDGs we wouldn't have these systemic problems that are going on in the world, the way that things are being done business as usual is not working so we really need to challenge ourselves. And that part of that is challenging ourselves individually professionally to do things that are a little bit outside of our comfort zone and that we haven't done before. The voluntary university review was an example of this. You see Davis, we decided to several different units and our leadership decided that we should embark on a university review of how we're doing on the SDGs and what we're doing on the SDGs and this was a huge project over a year long. We were one of the first in the world and the second in the US to do and so, like I was saying before a lot of these initiatives they don't have any models. So you kind of have to figure out along the way which makes it really actually a very creative space and interesting intellectually challenging space. So, a lot of this was again, how do, how do you partner in different ways. So universities have, you know, have silos, they have different offices that are responsible for different things and that's a problem when we need to work together oftentimes so we were really crossing with colleagues on campus to bring together our expertise and our office worked with our sustainability office and our diversity equity inclusion office really closely of the three of three offices we worked on this collaboratively. And we used a variety of tools we had to really come up with our own methodology what what could work for you see Davis what would make sense what would be meaningful information. And part of that was serving and part of it was finding data around campus and analyzing that other data that's collected so like I said, no precedent for a lot of these kinds of initiatives, which really forces forces people into creative problem solving and it's a really important professional skill in this in this field. So this is just another set of examples. We've been, we've been very committed and passionate this what universities are supposed this what we're set up to do right to support the next generation and knowledge in gaining knowledge and and being prepared to go out into the world and really address these challenges so we're trying to figure out ways to support that for students so these are just some examples of the things that that that we're building, we've been building at UC Davis, an internship, a summer course, and then we do a lot to support global learning, and we're put we're infusing the sustainable development goals into a lot of that. And these experiences are really meant to introduce to these to these to this global framework and other global frameworks that are out there and help help help young people, students to engage with those to have a voice to think about unpacking or understanding really complex issues, how do we, how do we, it can be very difficult to, to understand all these dimensions of these really complex issues so how do we start doing that how what tools are there. How do we use analysis, and then helping us really move forward on projects that are brand new for UC Davis around the sustainable development goals and supporting that agenda. So, these are some of the reasons that I think it's really useful to use the SDGs as a framework, and that we found it to be really useful, but that I found it to be really useful professionally as well. I think that it is a great tool for understanding in a more holistic well way really complex issues, because it is quite hard to unpack these and it gives us a way to do that to start thinking about how they're interrelated and how one decision could negatively impact different communities to think about all of our stakeholders and how they're important it's important to have input and voice and think about how that could be impacted that the agenda really values multiple perspectives and expertise areas and experiences so we want to really find ways to bring together different lenses and perspectives and you all on the on the webinar, I'm sure represent a really diverse set of programs that you're in and expertise areas that you're building for your own career and it's very powerful to bring these together. We aren't always structured in ways to do that so I think that this agenda is really important, and it's really important as students to find ways to work on projects with others who are not coming from your same backgrounds and are not coming from your same discipline areas, because we are all trained with different types of tools, analytical tools and ways of working and approaches, and we can learn from each other and really bring those together so it is very not only personally rewarding to work with people from all different backgrounds and with different lenses that they bring to the issues but it also is really beneficial to any organization that you're working in and any project. And really importantly, as I've said, I, we come back to stakeholders. So, I've spent a lot of my professional career, working on advocating for the women peace and security agenda, which is really about women being on the front lines of peace movements around being sidelined and left behind when it comes to peace agreements when it comes to making decisions about governance after conflict or in the midst of instability. And what I've learned is just you cannot have anything sustainable by leaving people behind and by not including stakeholders. And traditionally, a lot of times when we think about stakeholders when organizations think about stakeholders, they tend to think about the most powerful stakeholders stakeholders that have a lot of influence and that can spoil things spoilers as we call them. And that's obviously an important realistic thing to do, but it often does minimize groups of stakeholders that may not have as much influence and that's a problem in a lot of ways. So this really agenda really challenges us to think differently and to think about all stakeholders and valuing all of those kinds of perspectives that making sure they come to the table. And then of course facilitates link ins and collaboration so a big part of what I've been what I've done for my 2525 year career is collaborations and building things with building projects and building ways to work with others. And this is really important and if we have a common framework like the SDGs it makes it a lot easier to to start those collaborations to figure out where we have the same interests and where we have the same commitments and where we want to what we want to pursue and explore between organizations and between people. So it's a really important starting point that we don't always have. So the organizers for this session also mentioned that it might be interesting for you all to just hear a couple of thoughts about future needs, sort of in the career, the larger career field. And in my case I guess that would be SDGs global engagement advocacy policy making kind of a mix and higher education a mix of a mix of different fields but these are three things that I've been thinking a lot about as we're working on on pushing forward new types of ways of doing things using the SDGs where I think they're only growing areas, if you can gain some experience and think about them as important angles to your work. So the first is data collection and expertise so as we all know no matter what our discipline is there are just there's so much data out there and organizations are really struggling with how to collect data and how to use data to inform decision making and every organization struggling with this from the smallest civil society organizations to big governments, large governments, multi, multi national organizations like the United Nations and others. It's just there's there's the data issue is becoming more and more complex. And at the same time, we're recognizing that we have gaps, huge gaps in our data I mean one examples we're just not collecting appropriate levels of data that would show us what's going on with inequalities, gender inequalities and other inequalities racial other inequalities. We already know that and the data gaps show us that it's actually just not that important to organizations. They show us what's important and what's not so we really need to challenge organizations to gather the data where there is gaps and to be more intentional about it because we can't fix what we don't see. And if we don't have the data and the data is not presented on inequalities, then it's very easy to turn a blind eye and to not think that these things are problems or as big problems as they are and urgently need to be addressed so dealing with data not only being able to be comfortable with data and look at data and be able to analyze it from a technical point of view, but really be able to use your analytical skills to say, this is missing, why isn't this here, why aren't we are we collecting this and analyzing in the best way will be really important. And then of course emerging technology because everyone's talking about AI, everyone's talking about data sets being really problematic right now with with technology and in biases then coming out of the technology so this is these are all areas that if you're interested in data, if you're interested in how we're informing decision making, this is an area that it will be really important to explore and to have more young people have expertise and be looking at it more holistically. The second is bridging academics policymakers and practitioners so this is still a big problem. We're still living in our silos. It's easier to be if we're policymakers to talk to other policymakers if we're practitioners to talk to other practitioners and for academics to partner with other academics. It's a comfort zone. So we need to push ourselves out of this, we need to start bridging these sectors and and start being able to, to speak a language that's understandable across and that's where the SDGs I think can be really helpful. As well as other techniques to really start bridging what we need to do across and leveraging the individual strengths that these different sectors have. And then third changing institutions so institutions just need deep structural change to deal with the world of the world's problems right now. They're not necessarily set up to appropriately address these complex and interconnected challenges. So we need young people coming into these institutions to point this out and to say, okay, why don't we make change here or why don't it very slow. It's very slow to do institutional change but it needs to happen because if our institutions are not structured in a way to appropriately do this then we're going to often be pushing things to the margins that shouldn't be pushed to the margins and we're also going to just have problems making transformational change because everything will be so incremental and we don't have time with these problems that are just incredibly urgent. So we need champions both inside institutions to push those institutions incrementally, and then we need champions outside of institutions to say, this needs to change. And then the expertise that needs to come in here's the knowledge that needs to come in. So those are a couple of things that I thought might be helpful. And then the important skills just to just to emphasize some important skills that I've found in my career and that I found in my career with the SDGs that are really just vitally important and they sent some of them sound very simple, but ask questions and always be curious that can sound really simple but actually asking questions in situations where you may be the only person asking a certain question is hard and it takes courage. And so it is a challenge that it needs to happen because the only time that organizations start changing their approaches or see something that they didn't see before was because someone at the table had the courage to ask a question that might have not been ever asked by anyone else so don't ever underestimate the power of asking questions and how it can change the conversation and really beneficial ways to get persuasion ability. So you have to be able to make your point very clearly and understand what you want your audience to do with that information. And that's a persuasion. It's not just, it's persuasion, it's using facts and using data to say, Okay, this needs to change. This is the problem here is some knowledge that we have or I have to put on the table that could that could be beneficial for that but the change needs to happen so messaging. Taking risks and using creativity like I said before really important to be able to take risks and all the things that you know the example some of the examples I gave that there had been no precedent there's no model. Sometimes it might not work but a lot of times that works and it's really valuable not only for your organization but for the larger field to learn from and take forward and improve on as we're going forward. Communication obviously you've heard it. I'm sure a million times from every mentor you've had, but communication just is so important and both written and verbal. And then I would say, learn different ways of different analysis tools. So, I work a lot with gender analysis tools, which are intersectional so when you use gender analysis tools, you actually uncover a lot of other information about inequalities that's intersectional so it's been really useful in my work it's very valuable systems thinking as well you may have heard of I'm a big fan of systems thinking because I think it's a really important way to see interconnections and to see root causes of things. Well, so those are two of them that I've worked with but I think that there are many other valuable tools out there but just really trying to educate yourself on using some of these analytical tools to uncover things that might not be seen otherwise and to really start understanding the deeper level. Some of the problems that are going on and then of course I've said it before in this presentation but just really trying to find ways to gain experience working collaboratively on projects and working with people from different backgrounds and this is both virtual and in person it used to have to happen in person, but now increasingly it's happening virtually and that's challenging in its own ways so sometimes just being gaining experience virtually and in person will be really useful because it will make you very adaptable to whatever situation is going on in the workforce. So that's it for my just what I thought might be helpful to all of you to think about and I'm happy to be here for Q&A and any discussion areas or interest areas that you had that I didn't cover or that you wanted a little bit more information on. Thank you so much Dr. Shoemaker. We do have some questions please keep them coming in but before we go to those questions I just I'm curious to know, working at a university and academic institution in the US specifically. Can you find pushback on your SDG or on the SDG agenda. Probably from, you know, it is a university, you know, students will come in, these are, you know, be something that they need to learn about but thinking about the political atmosphere of this country specifically, you know, what is it, is it that easy, Billy? Yeah, I mean I think that it is, it's challenging, not because there's over, there's not so much over resistance, I think it's more that the first thing, the first obstacle is really awareness, a lot of times. There's pockets of knowledge about the SDGs, but especially because the United States as a country has not been terribly engaged with the SDGs for a number of years, I think that's changing, that's shifting now. Fortunately, but that, you know, a lot of students and faculty just are unaware of the, of, and staff are just unaware. They don't know what the SDGs are they've never heard of it. In our collaborations with universities from other countries, it feels like internationally it's a lot, it's a lot more known. And so I think that the first hurdle oftentimes is just pure, what is this? And, and, and talking about how it can be used and how it relates to an individual's work and how it can be used beneficially. And one of the first things we did was, we did, we did several, we did some surveying over the past few years, but we started by surveying our faculty to understand the faculty that were, you know, identifying as working on this and that was very revealing. Because a lot of the faculty actually not only identified that they were working on the SDGs they saw the connection and the value but also that they were working on the SDGs in the United States, not just not just with collaborators in other countries and so that was really illuminating because that told us that people do when they learn about the agenda they do see that it resonates up even within work that would not be classified as international work. So that awareness raising is really important and then I think the second hurdle is you're going to always have pockets of people who say, this doesn't relate to my work, I don't see the value. As you know, as I said I've been working for quite a few years on advocating for an agenda with institutions with the United States government with the UN. And we always come across resistant like resistance from people who just don't see it things as a priority the same way. Other than really trying to spend a lot of energy convincing them I think you show. And, and I think you focus on where your champions are and, and support your champions to do the really impactful work, and then it shows others over time, how valuable it really is. And so that's kind of been been our approach and then institutionally like I said it's not overt resistance but institutions are always resistant. It's just the nature of institutions and bureaucracy. People, you know institutions they have their mission they have their strategic plans they have their, they have people who have defined roles and generally people don't want things added. So we were just having a discussion at UC Davis with some international, some scholars from other countries yesterday, one who works for a development bank and saying you know, people just say I don't want to report on something else. I don't want to report on the SDG. So a lot of it is workload, you know there's different things. So it is slow it can be slow but I do think one of the other things we're working on is really trying to embedded in the university strategies because once you have those strategies people do have to report, you know, on how they're making progress on those strategies so that's an important tool as well, but it is a process it's a learning process for all of us. Okay, thank you. And we have a question here from Kennedy, let me see. I'm from Kennedy and it reads, I realized that many people including professionals are still not aware of the SDG goals and targets. Are there strategies in place to enable individuals, adopt, personalize and act on the targets at the individual level. And is that ever that that is that is that it requires everyone's contribution for the targets to be achieved at a truly global scale so I guess you can take this to your campus. And you talked about it but I think they would like to hear a little bit more. I think that it's a great question because I think that it can be hard to find the entry points for an individual. Yeah, and the target so if you all look at the global indicator framework which is part of the agenda but it was, it was agreed to a couple years after the SDGs. The targets and indicators that Kennedy is referring to, and part of the problem is the targets and indicators are really geared towards governments and so as the SDG, as this agenda the 2030 agenda has gained momentum and not only universities but local cities and so forth have seen that they could use it and it's valuable and it resonates with the problems they're facing. The targets and indicators, there's a misalignment in some ways with the targets and indicators and where that data would be and who collects that data and what types of data that is with the data that would be really relevant at the more local or university levels so it's hard sometimes because when you look at the, if you look at the targets and indicators you may get the sense, what could I possibly do. What are the different targets and metrics. And so I, I, I, we actually in our class we talked about the targets and indicators and some of the problems with that, but I have instead we focus more on the goals themselves and the interconnections and what you can do in your even in your own community with students we're also talking about, you know, become involved in the global discussions and dialogues and there's ways to do that there's entry points like SDSN right. There's there's networks that you can be a part of and there's emerging through these networks all kinds of student programs and projects and those projects are case studies. If you participate in those projects as a student as an undergrad or grad student, those projects are case studies and how to do the SDGs. So you're actually directly participating in in building the building the knowledge base of how we implement the SDGs when you're doing those projects so that is one way to do it. But definitely your community and campus. We've also found there's tremendous opportunity to say, this is a problem we're talking about whether it's hunger right that hunger or homelessness or, or, you know, climate what we're seeing it a big heatwave here in California I mean all these issues wildfires whatever it is that you're seeing around you that's concerning to bring in the SDGs into that discussion to connect it, connect it globally. That's a huge. That's a huge. It's a valuable thing that you can be doing in your own efforts as a student, but to just bring it into the conversation. That moves us forward, because that starts connecting what people are talking about in their own communities with the global challenges and it makes us understand we are connected and we've got to learn from each other. So I don't know if that's helpful Kennedy but I think that there are, you know, these are kind of some of the things, and we're actually to your point to we. We felt that students were struggling with how they could connect and be part of this agenda so we actually are at our SDG interns our group of undergraduates put together a student guide to the SDGs for UC Davis that we're going to, we're going to put together a note in the fall it's almost done. So we hope that's a help just to give students an idea of where they can intersect with this agenda. Thank you so much after the shoemaker. There's another question. And I'm, I'm picking the questions based on the number of thumbs up so that this one has to. This is from mithat Keane and, and, and they say relevant. Well, they say what do you see the future of agenda 2030, particularly when it comes to education for SDG SDGs replace MDGs, what will replace SDGs. And this is really where I think you can really add. How can universities take this into account. So, so, you know, to the to your question before about where there's resistance or this is the area where there is the most resistance to be honest because institutional change, you know is slow and it's long term thinking. And, and as a result, sometimes what you hear from people is this agenda is going to go away anyway. It has a time limit 2030. So why should we change things or put it in articulated in our strategies or shift the way that we're doing things if it's going to go away so this is actually the area where you hear the most vocal resistance. It's not of course a question that I have the answer to, you know what what happens after 2030, but I do think that on my perspective at least I mean it's completely my perspective is that because the SDGs. It was a very extensive consultative process around the world to come up with the SDGs. I'm pretty impressive about three years more than three years of consultations with all different sectors. And so they, they really do represent the voice of the world on what the, what the concerns are. I don't see that they that they will change that much. I think they've been heavily, you know, brought in from input and and negotiated by the member states. And I think there were problems with the MDGs, you know, there weren't very many of them. Some of them were very specific, more specific. And so I think they address some of those problems with the 2030 agenda. The targets and indicators I think we'll need an overhaul. That's that's my that because as the SDGs have localized so much, I think that they're going to the implementation structures will probably need the overhaul. They have voluntary national reviews many governments have submitted. It's completely voluntary and voluntary local reviews are rising I think there'll be more acknowledgement of those different levels of how we're tracking progress. And then a relook at like what the data looks like and how we can measure progress at different levels that I could foresee happening but probably this the the philosophy behind the SDGs like I was saying those those things that make it special. Plus the 17 goals themselves. I just, I, they're not going away. We're not going to achieve them by 2030 we already know that with COVID-19 and all the, you know, the, it set us backwards in so many ways. And the system systemic problems are very difficult to achieve but I think, I think we have to keep going on it and so hopefully, you know, it will extend in whatever manner, you know, it does but but I do think it's it's these issues aren't going away so that's what I tell people, regardless of how it's packaged are agreed to by the countries. These are the issues that are of concern to the world and so we need to keep moving forward on them. Okay, thank you. That's another question, which is focused on developing countries but I think, you know, it's, it could be true for develop and developing countries so what are your recommendations where students are where students that undergraduate level from developing countries can contribute to working towards SDGs. And this is more the individual initiative I mean you've answered that really, but do you want to add anything else. Definitely. I'm sorry for the delay. I was having the other phone was ringing and wait till it wait till stops for a second without trying to unplug it here. Okay, this should be the last one. So I think, well I think one of the ways is really to, I think we have tremendous opportunities to forge cross cross country cross institutional projects between students, and I think it's very valuable to students to do different kinds of projects. Like I said the networks that have emerged are starting to launch certain opportunities for students to work with other students from other universities. And that could be a method to for students to come together across countries that are at different levels of their own economic development, and bring together those perspectives that are going to be really important across so that I think definitely looking at looking for those kinds of programs where you can do collaborative work would be a really important strategy and way for for students at the undergraduate level from developing countries to contribute towards the SDGs. And then I would also say, so that's kind of the student learning side that I think is, there's a lot of thinking emerging right now in the university sector about how collaborations among universities aren't just for research they should be for giving opportunities for global global work across. But the other way that you can get involved and this is for everyone, not just certain countries I mean the, the wonderful thing about the SDGs is, it applies equally to whatever country you're in and whatever context you're in. But one of the other things that students could do is really press their local levels for voluntary local reviews. There are also often ways at the national level to get involved in the voluntary national reviews or there's input that is often being sought by to put those together. But the voluntary local reviews can be a lot more accessible for students. If your university is located in a city, or an area that might be willing to to engage in that that's a great opportunity for collaboration at the local level. And I would say also push your universities, push your universities to integrate the SDGs as a priority, push your universities to integrated into the teaching and the classes and to offer projects and ways to, to really dig in and work with the SDGs. And then push your universities to start tracking their progress. There's different ways of doing that. You know, and the process we went through was quite in, in, you know, intense and took a lot of time and effort. But universities can also track what pieces of it or, you know, you know, you don't have to always take the giant step if the university is doesn't have the capacity at that time to do it. But I think just bringing together the information and start collecting it and looking at what what's being done. Like I said, we don't, we can't act on things that we don't see we have to see the information in order to do something. So those might be a couple of ideas to engage. Thank you so much. I, we don't have a lot of time, but I will ask one last question. And that is, Dr. Shoemaker, I've, I've been reading and hearing a lot about academic institutions. So this is my question academic institutions that are creating their degree programs on specifically the SDGs as an academician. Do you think that that's the way to go. So for me, I've seen them as sort of, you know, SDG in a box or in a graduate degree program and I guess they'll spend a year or two learning about the SDGs and probably working on some project that's related to the SDGs. Is that the way to go I mean multiple ways the better the more the better I see that but I just have questions and maybe a little bit of concerns. What are your thoughts on that. Yeah, that's interesting. I probably share some of the same perspectives you do on it. I think that, you know, like you said, more, you know, more awareness more working with with this agenda is really useful, but at the same time. I think on any of these things we need to be pushing for mainstreaming. If we continue to silo the SDGs, it's just, it doesn't lend itself to siloing. And do we really want only a small cohort of students to come out and be familiar with how to work with the SDGs. That, you know, and how to work on global challenges more broadly with different tools. Do we really only want students that chose that degree program to be well versed and competent in working, working with this framework and using this as a as a as a tool for collaboration. And that, that's great that training that preparation that that is occurring but I would like to see a lot more push into, you know, a variety of degree programs and disciplines. So on one one side, pushing it into that so that whatever degree, we're teaching or students are pursuing, there is a recognition that we're going to be globally engaged with that topic, and that that topic is also intersecting with many other topics and that it has a role to play in societal challenges. And so, if we can infuse some of that across an inside disciplines but at the same time not just infusing it in those disciplines, but really creating new spaces and ways for disciplines to work together. I think young people will push that frontier, a lot more because, you know, when we're, when we're more seasoned professionals, we tend to become comfortable in the way that we've done things right. So, you know, there's always going to be wonderful faculty champions who are really thinking about how they could do things differently but there's also it's going to be harder to to really think in a really innovative way more, more broadly across the university about how we can shape the learning in different ways so that we're working across those disciplines. And I think that's an area where students themselves from where they sit are going to have a lot of valuable ideas about how that could be done more effectively so I think at the same point that I'd like to see is infusion, much more infusion into the disciplines, and then more thinking structurally about how we work across the disciplines on the SDGs. Thank you so much, Dr. Shoemaker really very interesting. I've provided the participants your work email. So you'll probably get some follow up emails, and, and, and the participants thank you for being such a good, you know, audience. We're now going to move to the next speaker. We have Aniket Shaw, actually Dr. Shaw as well. He is the managing director and global head of environmental social and governance and sustainability research at Jeffery's group. He's a graduate of Yale College and University of Oxford. I will, Aniket will share his experiences is going to be really free flowing in the sense that he, you know, he has, he has years of experience and lots of knowledge. So, let me step back and let me allow Aniket to really give you more on his background and his experiences. Thank you. Thank you so much. Really great to be with you again. And for folks on the line, you all know, I'm sure how lucky you are to have worked with Lucia and to be under her tutelage in some regards. And it's great to be here with the SDSN, an organization that I've been engaged with for the past eight years and whose board I sit on now. So I'm Aniket. I am based here in New York City. And I've spent the last 13 years of my career trying to navigate and crisscross the financial industry and the sustainability industry. And with the goal of trying to get both entities or both communities to speak each other's language a little bit more. When I started working on that project in 2009 at the Earth Institute at Columbia, there was deep antipathy from each community towards the other. The financial industry thought the sustainability world was a bunch of tree huggers and the sustainability world thought that the financial world was a bunch of, you know, rapacious capitalists. And now 13 years later, everything has changed. There is a real genuine desire for both communities to work together to try to solve problems around climate change, biodiversity, social inclusion, fair wages and so on and so forth. And folks like myself are trying to figure out a path to do so. So my career had sort of make sense in retrospect, but while I was down down this path that didn't make much sense. I spent around half of my career working at Columbia's Earth Institute and then at the at the SDSN from 14 to 17. And then I spent the other half of my career working in the financial industry. First in London at a firm called invest tech asset management. That $200 billion asset manager really focused on emerging markets and sustainable investing. And then sometime at Oppenheimer funds before joining Jeffries, which is one of the world's largest investment banks and works to connect investors and corporates on the sustainability topic. It is what I do, but in general works to connect investors and corporates with capital with advice with perspectives on where money and transactions should happen in order to prepare for the future. In terms of where the world is today and the way I see it. You know, the skill sets that you all are developing or have developed over the past few years are really the skill sets that are in need across the business world. I have never seen so much demand for a certain skill set it might be sort of rivaled with the need for computer scientists and engineers. There's just such a desire to hire people who have knowledge around sustainability knowledge around climate knowledge around, you know, all of those related topics. But of course, it's not just having broad knowledge, but it's about having specific knowledge. I think we're at a period now where the world generally understands that sustainability is important that climate change is a major major long term risk and a major long term opportunity if we can solve some of these underlying problems. And the skill sets that are now required are people who can go into a financial model and model out how climate change will impact an investment. People who have specific knowledge around energy systems so they can work to decarbonize the energy system. People who understand how agricultural systems work so that they can be part of thinking through how to make agriculture more climate resilient and so on and so forth. So there's a real need to go from macro to micro to specific knowledge about specific sectors and in specific regions. And I think the MDP program has given people a lot of the toolkit in order to get to that basic get down to that specific set of knowledge. So I'll just I'm going to pause there and would love to take any questions from the audience and from the participants questions from Lucia. I'm Joel and I'm sorry I missed your remarks earlier but would love to hear any comments and questions that you have. Again my job today is, is I sit right in the middle of the financial industry talking to both corporates and investors on sustainability so happy to provide any perspectives there that might be of interest. Okay, thank you so much. I have a question I have in terms of the audience members. There is an array of students, you know, some, you know, they're focused on environment conservation. They may not necessarily have a business background. But they may be interested and probably are interested in what you are doing what you're saying. So what it would be your suggestion beyond go back to school and get an MBA, or would that be your recommendation to the students. Yeah, it's a very good point. I would say a few things. Number one is, it's good that you're interested in understanding the business and financial world. Oftentimes when I give talks like this, people have a very strong and typically towards business and to finance and they think that, you know, I don't want to engage with that world because there are a bunch of crooks and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the first thing is to be open minded. Business is not all good. Business is not all bad. Finance is not all good. Finance is not all bad. Just like academia is not all good or not all bad. And so being open minded about having a career in business or certainly understanding the business world is a good place to start. So that's number one. Number two is in terms of how you can make your how you can get involved. You don't need an MBA. In fact, I guess what I'm saying is that what I'm saying is actually that the number one skill set that people are looking for is sustainability. They will actually want your underlying knowledge around sustainable development around the SDGs around the Paris climate agreement around nationally determined contributions around national frameworks around climate mitigation and adaptation. All the skills and knowledge that you should have developed in your master's program that I hope you have kept up with and deepened over the last several years. That's all very, very useful. What the business world will want you to that the leap you need to make is you have to figure out how you can make that knowledge useful and practical to them. You know, pragmatism is the most important sort of trait of being useful in the business world. People don't want long reports of 50 pages about every single detail around X, Y and Z. What they want to know is specifically what do they need to know. How can they make a decision based on the information and knowledge you have. And how does that serve the needs of the business. Right. How does this serve the needs of the business that you are trying to apply for. So the second point I would make is just the translation is not how do I get an MBA but it's how do I take the skill set and the knowledge that I have and apply it to what company X is doing. And to do that you need to really understand what the company does. You need to understand its business model. You need to understand its products and services. You need to understand how the company makes money. You know, that's the number one sort of analytical question is if you're applying for a job at a business. How does that company make money. Who are their customers. How do those customers make decisions. And then within that how does sustainability provide a competitive advantage for that business. So that's the second point I would make. And the third point I would make is for people who have graduate degrees I noticed this all the time in my career which is that if you if I can just be honest. Sometimes people get a little complacent because they have a master's degree or a PhD, because you can always fall back on oh well I have a PhD in this subject oh I have a master's degree on this subject. Folks let me let me just tell you a little bit about the real world as I see it. This topic is moving so quickly. It's moving so fast. There are so many actors in it that a master's degree from five years ago means absolutely nothing in terms of your value today. Unless you have used your master's degree or your undergraduate degree for what it should be, which is it gives you the base knowledge and the level of curiosity that you need. So that you can remain at the cutting edge of a subject, you need to be at the sharpest edge of a subject because there needs to be some value that you provide that nobody else inside that company can provide. And so what I would just say to folks who might be a few years out of school. Or if you're in school, let me just tell you it's a very, very exciting place to be in, but it's I eat this whole sustainability climate etc in the business world. But it is a space where a lot of people are coming into and don't rest on your laurels. Always remain very, very sharp. Stay up to date on the newest technologies, the newest policies, the newest regulations. Because if it's not you, somebody else will and your master's degree on your resume will not be the reason why you will win out compared to somebody else in the job market today. So those are just some some, you know, practical pieces of advice for folks who want to come into the business world. I would not worry about getting an MBA. In fact, I would say that would be a bit of a detriment. You have that you have the qualifications. And how do you translate that into what's useful for company and for that it starts by really understanding the companies that you are interested in, and that are looking to hire in this space. Thank you. Yeah, I'm wondering about what have you, for example, in all your work experiences, what has been the biggest surprise in terms of what you do and the SDGs. Have you had any pushback I mean it's business so they want the bottom line they want money, but what has been the surprising pushback that, you know, great question, you know, seven years ago, seven, eight years ago. Oh, let me just start again. We're in a very different moment now than when the SDGs came about. At some level, you don't really need it. I would argue you don't really need the SDGs anymore. The SDGs were a very, very helpful awareness builder around sustainability and sustainable development. They were, you know, they helped in a simple way in a colorful way. They captured people's minds they captured people's imaginations. There was so much excitement around it and so on and so forth. That excitement has died down around the SDGs in the business world. I don't hear about the SDGs, you know, the way I did four or five years ago, four or five years ago, businesses and investors that I want to align my investments with the SDGs and so on. Now no one really talks or much fewer people talk about it. But that's not a mark of the failure of the SDGs that's a mark of the success I would say, because the underlying things that the SDGs were driving for are now actually just become part of how businesses are planning their strategy. They're asking themselves, how do I become more efficient in my business? How do I use less energy? Not because necessarily it's something that I want to do, but it's because it's something that it brings down the cost and it increases the profits of my firm. Or, hey, my investors are pushing me to do it. So, you know, and if the investors are the ones who own the company, so therefore I'm doing it as well. So the SDGs, again, you know, there are those who sort of view the SDGs religiously, and they say we need to use the SDGs and then really look at the 169 targets and the indicators and blah, blah, blah. I've never been, I've never subscribed to that. Even though colleagues of ours at the SDSN, that's, you know, that's what they do and I respect them for it. Again, the pragmatist in me says the SDGs are saying to people we need to, in a way, we need to decrease emissions. We need to increase fairness. We need to decrease inequality and so on and so forth. Those are the simple takeaways of it. And now it's about how do you actually get that done? And that's where, you know, that's where the world is today. As evidence of this, I'll tell you that look at the US government last week they announced $370 billion in climate investments. No one, they've never done anything like that before. Is it enough? No. Is it perfect? No. Are there many shortcomings with it? Yes. But the message has been received by the US government that, you know, the world cares about climate. Similarly for me in the business world, you know, there's a trillion dollar green bond market right now. A trillion dollars of green bonds that are out there. You don't need to tell investors, hey, did you know climate change matters? Did you know you should invest in green stuff? They get it. Now they're actually looking for, well, what are the best investments? Hey, Annika, should I invest in solar or should I invest in wind? What do you think about hydrogen? What's your view about carbon capture and sequestration? How do we think about resilience? You know, they're very practical micro questions. You know, I had a client today say to me, hey, Annika, I'm meeting with the CEO of Nestle in a few weeks. What are the three questions I should ask him about the future of food? I mean, these are very practical questions that are on folks' mind. And I think that's where, if there's one takeaway I would have if I was listening to me would be pragmatic and make and translate your knowledge into practical things that companies and investors can actually action. Then you will find your skill set to be very much in demand. Thank you. Wow. Oh, honey, it's so interesting. I mean, I really, thank you so much. I have a sort of, the questions will be coming from the audience. So please audience, put your questions in the Q&A, but I do have a question for you, Annika, another one. Okay, so your message is, you know, getting a master's or even if you have a doctorate in this field, that's not the way to go. You just need to stay on top of the latest information in this field of the SDGs. But for those of us who do have a doctorate or a master's or even an undergraduate degree and they want, and we want more study outside. I mean, what have you done to continue growing? Do you read the newspapers? Are there specific newspapers that you read or trade magazines? What do you do? Yeah, good question. So just to be clear, I'm not saying to anyone, I will never say to someone you shouldn't go to graduate school or you shouldn't go to undergrad. I mean, I respect that. I teach myself. I did my PhD. I, you know, it's been a big part of my life. And I, all I'll say, just so it's very clear, my point there is, don't rest on your laurels. Just because you have a PhD, just because you have a master's doesn't give you claim to this topic or to this subject or to jobs or to interesting opportunities, because there is a huge amount of competition now. Because lots of people are entering this space. A lot of people will have those degrees. A lot of people will be working in this space. A lot of people won't have the degrees, but will have worked in solar or in wind or regenerative ag or in this or that. And they'll say, great, you have your master's from six years ago, but I'm doing this stuff today. And just so I'm, it's very clear, Lucy, I'm now never against graduate school. If you are, if the whole point about graduate school to me and what I tell my students at CPAS, you have to use this as a way to become obsessed with subjects, and then read about them and study them for the rest of your life. And that is the whole point of going to school to me, because otherwise you can't really learn that much in two years. It gives you the seeds of what you will learn over the next 60. That's on that point. Now, it's a very practical point about what you should read and so on and so forth. So, again, make being hyper practical. Number one, everyone should read the financial times. If you're interested in business and finance and so on, the FT is required reading. For me and for my team here at Jeffries, I run a team of 10 professionals on sustainable finance. They have done the best reporting and the best work around climate and sustainability in the financial and business world. The FT is expensive, I know. So it's, you know, not everyone can afford it, but if you can afford it, I highly recommend reading the financial times on a regular basis. The second thing I would recommend everyone reading if you have a particular interest in business is Bloomberg. It's also not cheap. It's $30 a month, but the journalism that they are doing on Bloomberg green around climate and sustainability is excellent. And this is the stuff that people in the business world read. They read the financial times, and they read Bloomberg. So I would say those two are from on a day to day basis. You should be in that realm. The second thing I would say is in terms of books, you should frankly just keep reading books just hopefully like you did in your master's program, although I learned as it now I teach at SIPA for the last couple of years that many of my students didn't even read the financial times when they were in my classes, which was always a little bit a little heartbreaking, but there is just so much good nonfiction and fiction right now being written about climate and sustainability. Some of my favorite writers include Voslav Schmill, SMIL, the energy transition was a great scientist and historian of energy. You know, I've read a lot of work in the natural. I mean, there's just there's just so much every day there's more books being written around climate on the cutting edge of hydrogen or on the future of regenerative agriculture or, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The third thing I would say to folks is that, you know, you should listen to podcasts. There are so many great podcasts around sustainability that that folks listen to. I have really enjoyed Michael Liebreich, L-I-E-B-R-I-C-H Michael Liebreich, his work on his podcast. There's also David Roberts's podcast. He now has a sub-stack called Volts. He's one of the best journalists in the world on climate and sustainability. I highly recommend those two folks specifically. So, yeah, it is, you know, there is no answer other than staying knowledgeable and frankly being obsessed with something. It would be the other sort of piece of advice I would have to folks in the audience that people can't become experts in all parts of sustainability or sustainable development, but there should be one part of it that you are obsessed with, that you know more about than anyone else, you know, all the players, you know, all the companies, you know, all the regulation and so on and so forth. And it's really, you just need to know one part of it, whether it's hydrogen or, you know, a cloud seeding or geoengineering or whatever that might be, but become really, really expert on it. I'll also suggest to people on the line that there's a difference between knowing the name of something and knowing the topic. It's something I find that, you know, just because you know the name of a topic or you know the name of something doesn't mean you know anything about the underlying subject. So don't live in generalities. Live with, you know, live in the world of specific information and specific knowledge. That's what's going to make, that's how you make the translation from being a student, and maybe being you know someone who can write research papers at a think tank to being useful in the business world it's have practical knowledge about something specific. Thank you so much. So, I think we do have some questions here. Here's one from, I believe this is faith Clark. And her question is, what are your thoughts about some states investing or not investing their pension funds with companies who do not have sustainable practices. Yeah, so it's a very good question and something you're reading in the papers today a lot. The whole ESG space has become mired in controversy right now in the United States because it has entered the realm of politics. And in some ways, it was always going to go here and it always has been here but right now it's become more become louder than it used to be. I'll just say a couple things about this. The first is that if you view sustainability. As a way for a company to make higher revenues or lower costs, in other words, to increase their profits. Then there's no question that sustainability considerations or that sustainable companies should be inside a pension funds investments. Right. If the goal of sustainability is to improve and increase a company's long term earnings, then there's no issue here. If you are viewing sustainability as through the lens of this will lower the financial returns of a business and or this will lower the financial returns that I as an investor get. Then you will be in an in an issue because the role of a fiduciary in the United States has legally defined is that you have a duty of loyalty. And a duty of care to your investor to the person whose money you are investing. And so if you are managing money on behalf of a pensioner with the intention that this will lead to lower returns. Then you're going to have some real issues and they're going to be lawsuits, and you're going to have, you know, the stuff that's happening in Florida and in Texas right now. To answer their question, the main responses, it depends on how you define the project. And for me, and for what we do at Jeffries, I'll just be crystal clear. Sustainability is about increasing the profits of a company. It's about lowering their risk or increasing their revenues. It's about making your customers more loyal to you. It's about being aligned with regulation. You know, there's so many tailwinds right now. Where you can make the argument that being a sustainable company is actually going to make you more profitable in the long run. Customers care about it. The regulators care about it. Your investors care about it and so on and so forth. But for people who look at sustainability in the business world as I'm doing this because I want to make the world a better place. Regardless of the financial returns and the impact of financial returns, then you're going to be your, your, I'm not saying that's good or bad. That's a different project. And that's going to, you're going to come up against some of these issues. Like you're seeing play themselves out right now. Those are my, that's my take on that question. Okay, here's another question from a Kennedy me rule. And they ask, do you have some general insights around social enterprises that make money while doing good for the community? Do you have some specific pointers to investors funders that might be interested in supporting such enterprises, especially if those enterprises are based in East Africa. And I can't, I did have a question about, can you please repeat the name of, you mentioned two pot podcasts. One is Michael Lebruch and the other one is David Roberts. So is it Roberts, or how do you spot Roberts. David Roberts and the, and the name of his podcast is called vaults, BOLTS. Okay. Okay. The most important question when you're starting a company or investing in a company is number one, what problem are you solving for? Okay, so what, why are you creating a new business? What, what are you trying to do that nobody else is doing right now? And number two, what's your business model? This is the world of business. You need to make money so that you can sustain yourself so that you can return money to your shareholders, that you can pay your employees, you can build the products that you want to sell and so on and so forth. So that's the logic of a business, right? Whether you like it or not, that's how business works. It's what problem are you solving for? And then what's your business model of actually making that succeed? That's true anywhere in the world. That's true in East Africa. That's true here in New York and so on and so forth. When you're in East Africa, the challenge is that foreign investors will think that operating in East Africa is much more risky than it actually is in practice. And so in, in financial terms, the point is that they will actually increase the profit expectations that are required for them to invest in your business, because they'll say, okay, that's great that you're trying to build this company. Hey, this is very risky and therefore I demand a higher return, meaning I need a higher amount of profits or I need a higher return of the profits to me as an investor. That's if the investment is purely from a financial perspective. There will be other investors who will say, you know what, I'm okay having a lower return because I'm not doing this just to maximize returns. I'm actually looking for some type of financial return and social return, right? That's the other point in there are generally the other point I should just make. It just as taking a step back is when you work in the world of finance and business you realize there are very few general generalities. Okay, there's nuance with everything. There isn't one invest one type of investor there isn't one type of regulation. There are some investors in the world who will say, I'll take a lower financial return, but then I'm not a financial investor. I'm an impact investor. You know, everything depends on context and depends on who you are engaging with. But I think the way that for whoever asked the question, the real, you know, the point to answer is what problem are you trying to solve for it? And then what's your model of how you make money? And if you can develop those things clearly, you will find investors who will want to support your business. And then you and then you go from there. And I'm happy to go into it more specifics if the person wants to talk but that those are just some high level thoughts. Okay, thank you. The same person as based on your experience as he's or she's curious to know which sectors attract most funding investment and your, your take on why. Yeah, so right now we are, we are seeing just a real explosion of financing for all things in the sustainability world. The two areas that are getting most focus right now are renewable energy. So solar, wind, solar and wind specifically. I would like to see more investment in hydro and a nuclear. I've always been supportive of nuclear and I think we need more capital going into it, but it's tough these days. So that's one area is renewable energy. And the other area is electric vehicles and electric transportation where, as I'm sure folks saw recently. You have the state of California, probably the fifth largest economy in the world, saying that after 2035 there will be no new internal combustion engine cars being sold. You know, signals like this are basically driving the auto companies to go all electric over the next 15 years. Which is just an incredible thing because if that were to actually happen, you know, there needs to mean entire infrastructure built for that and charging stations. Improvement of grid of transmissions and all of that kind of stuff needs to evolve. And so that's the second area that there is a lot of where there is a lot of focus. The reality is, is that over the next 20, 30 years, every part of the business, every part of the economy will have a sustainability angle to it. You know, all of our buildings in some way need to be refitted to be sure that they are more climate aligned. You're going to see a major focus around heat pumps in the homes so that our heating and cooling becomes driven by electricity and not by gas. You're going to see major investments in transportation, whether it's EVs, electric scooters, electric buses, electric trucks, electric, at some level, at some point low carbon flight. So there's just almost a limitless amount of investments. Each one of these sectors are in a different place in terms of investability right now. But those are just some, some, some thoughts to that question. Thank you so much. Here's a more general question. Aniket says, but by Jessica Irene, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that causes us less focus on SDGs. What do you think we should focus on to be able to achieve the SDG by 2030 so this could be you can focus on one thing or just in general. Yeah. I think the most important thing to focus on to achieve the SDGs is public policy. It's actually it's government. It's what are the rules of the game that are being established by governments? What are the incentives that they're putting in place? Because business will follow. It's honestly that's my experience. This is not the high theory of academia. This is just my life experience of actually doing this stuff is that when the incentives change and the incentives change because in large part because governments change the rules of the game, business reacts like that. Business doesn't actually like oil, gas and coal. We don't actually have like, it's not like we love fossil fuels and we hate renewables. If the returns on renewables are higher than the returns on fossil fuels in a risk on a risk adjusted basis, investors will move to that. I really do believe that in general, business is not immoral. It's amoral. It doesn't have a moral driver. It basically just says, where do I make the highest returns for a given level of risk? And so and I think that is being driven in large part and will be driven in large part over the next 50 years by policy by government. And so that's what I would be focusing on. I would be focusing on if you're an American thing, what are the things that the federal, state and local governments need to do in practical terms? You know, don't come to me and say, oh, we need a long term blah, blah, blah, 50 year 100 years. That's ridiculous. People get that. What do I need to do now? Okay, on again, we need to put a price on carbon. Okay, do we do it at the federal level? Do we do it at the state level? Do we do it at the local level? Oh, do we do it as a direct tax or do we set up carbon markets? If we set up carbon markets at what level at what price, what sector should be included? Those are the level of specific knowledge and insight that the best people that the forget about the best people. That's what the world means right now is answers to very specific questions around sustainability. And that's where I think the focus needs to be. And then if it's about achieving the SDGs globally, I think the number one issue around, and here, you know, Professor Sacks, Jeffrey Sacks has done some of the most important work on this is how do you increase the amount of capital flow from high income countries to low income countries over the next 20, 30 years. And for that, that really is about changing the rules of the game. It's about changing how the IMF thinks about debt sustainability of low income countries. That's about changing how the credit reading agencies think about credit readings for low income countries. You know, it's not. Those are systemic questions. And that's where I think there's a lot more focus that there needs to be. It's about how do you increase the size of the World Bank by the factor of five. You know, those are very practical questions that I think people would be, you know, should spend their time working on. Anika, do you think that we really are we going to reach or achieve the SDGs? Are we going to SDGs by 2030? Are we going to achieve them and the indicators and all of that? Are we going to achieve the SDGs by 2030? No, I don't think we're going to achieve the SDGs by 2030. But that's not a failure of the SDGs. I think, you know, the SDGs have started a, look, in some ways, honestly, I would say to folks, and I know this might be sacrilege at an event like this. I would say it's not about the SDGs anymore, is my view, because the SDGs have kickstarted the work. The work is ongoing. The work has begun. We're trying to get, you know, 90% of the world is under a net zero framing right now, you know, at the company level or at the country level. That would that have happened without the SDGs in the Paris Agreement? I don't know, but we're here now. You know, companies are all now signing up to have science-based targets and to implement them with regards to their emissions. You know, countries are having major, major investment programs around sustainability. You know, this is now all in motion. And the question now is about acceleration. How do you accelerate this? I don't know if that, my personal view is that you don't accelerate it by saying, hey, did you know that the SDGs were signed onto by 193 governments seven years ago? Like, I don't think that's where the conversation needs to be. I think instead the conversation needs to be, okay, you know, 30% of the U.S. electricity today comes from renewables. We need to get that to 90% over the next 20 years. How are we going to get that done? So that's more of where my focus is, and I think where more people on the line should focus their time. Thank you. And we have almost the last question. Yeah, but you know, you've given us some very good suggestions, recommendations in terms of really focus on the specifics, or, you know, instead of just genera, generalities continue to grow and learn always based on your own personal experiences and the workforce and education. Is there anything you would have done differently? Oh, great question. You know, I, it's a great question. I think I do a pretty good job of living this life my life under a, what I call the regret minimization framework where when I think about decisions. I think in 20 years from now, will I have regretted if I didn't do X. And so it's a very important part of the way I think about the world. But at a very, very practical level, my biggest regret, and this I would say the starting point of this is when I was in college and I don't know how old folks are on the line but I wish I had not, I wish I had not stopped studying mathematics and science as early as I did. You know, I was a pretty good math student in high school I took a couple math classes at Yale undergrad, but then I got interested in policy and I got interested in history and all this and I, in some ways, was more compelling to me than staying with sort of a more technical knowledge or technical training. And I, I don't think it slowed me down but I think it would have been nice to have remained a student of math and science for a longer period of time. So it might not be the type of answer that the question was trying to get. Otherwise I would just say, you know, this is a great subject you all were early in getting trained in it. It's super exciting. You know, stay committed to it. Get get really practical is just that's just the one thing I want you to take away you get practical and become the very best at one part of sustainability. And don't get caught up in, in, in, in lingo or in rhetoric. Provide practical value to people that you work with. And if you do, you're going to have an amazing career in this space because the whole world is being reinvented right now. And, and it's art. It's, it's, it's just a great project to be in. So there are just some thoughts and if anyone wants to stay in touch, Lucia has my email address. So please just share that with folks and happy to. Okay. Thank you so much and the cat and the cat. I know that you're rushing to go. I'll ask you one last question and that's a promise. I'm from P use and he says, do you think that world leaders and the governments and the UN, for that matter, are really concerned about achieving the SDG so it goes back to that achieving the SDGs question. Also, what magnitude of it. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, I don't think people wake up in the morning saying how do I achieve the SDG. I think that's a question that's on most national leaders minds or business leaders mind. They ask, but they do ask, how do I make sure that the population of my country lives a decent life. I mean, I do. I'm not that cynical. I don't think I honestly do believe most people wake up even if you disagree with people's politics. I do think most people wake up in the morning when you're elected officially say how do I make people's lives better. And, you know, and it's funny because when you're an elected leader, you have to think about trade off, because the world is has trade off. That's one thing I think the SDG world didn't spend enough time articulating there are costs. There are trade off. To the SDGs and sustainable development. You know, if you're going to increase wages for everyone. You are going to lower returns for shareholders. That's, I mean, that's logic. There's no, there's no, that's common sense you increase the cost to accompany you decrease the profits. That might be okay. And maybe we as a society that's what we want to do that's fine. But there are trade off to the world and elected leaders know that better than anyone. Do I give a subsidy to this industry or that industry? Do I save this? Do I save the ag system or do I save the cars of manufacturing? These are all very practical questions. So I'm not that harsh on and the other point, by the way, is that politicians will will respond to what people want. I think that the focus should be on making these topics that we care about fair wages, climate mitigation, climate adaptation. We have to make them political issues. You have to win. You have to get it to the point where people will vote based on a candidate's views on climate change. We're not there yet. We're not there at all right now. And that's the hard work, I think, and that's really hard work. But by the way, in the US, the one political party has gotten Americans to vote against their best interest for 50 years. But it took 50 years, but the Republicans are were able to convince people to vote against their self interest, whereas I would argue voting on the SDG lines is in your best interest. And if you are low income middle income person, if you're not a gazillionaire than this, then actually the SDG is make total sense. You should tax people more you should have more redistribution you should have higher wages. You should decrease emissions like all this kind of stuff. But we in the SDG world, you know, we live in this sort of like ivory tower of 300 page reports and, you know, conferences where we only talk to one another and blah, blah, blah. Go out just, you know, take these ideas and figure out how do you can, how do you convince the masses, but also how do you actually translate this into specific policies that candidates can run on. Then you start making this really real. And then you can see that one day you'll have a $369 billion climate thing and by the way, if there were more Democratic senators in the House and the Senate, I mean, the more Democratic senators in the Senate and more folks in the house, then it could have been a $500 billion climate package or a trillion dollar climate package. But that those those things are because of politics in the US. And so I would just say to folks, you know, don't have generalities like oh politicians are bad or good or businesses better good. You got to get in the fight, you got to be in there. You got to be in the system and bring your knowledge to that and then you'll actually get to see what it's like to try to push some of these changes in the real world. Thank you so much, Dr Shaw. Really appreciate your time with us this afternoon. Very, very enlightening and very powerful, I think, and also as well to Dr shoemaker. Really, you know, both of you. You've been fabulous and it's been a great way to kick off the speaker series. Thank you. And thanks everybody for participating and being here with us. I've the emails of both speakers. I've included in the chat. So please follow up with them. If you have any questions you may have or just email me if you didn't receive it. Again, thank you. Good luck on you. Take care. Bye everyone.