Sustainable Lifestyle & Education in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA)

Published on March 16, 2023

The Global Opportunities for Sustainable Development Goals (GO4SDGs) was launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the German Ministry for the Environment in 2019 with the goal to accelerate regional solutions for inclusive green economies and sustainable consumption and production by sharing best practices and offering science-based knowledge, policy tools and capacity development opportunities in priority areas to “build back better.” It targets support policy champions, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and youth in integrating sustainable consumption and production, and inclusive green economy approaches in their policies and decisions to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Additionally, the GO4SDGs work stream in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) is led by the UNEP Regional Office for Europe and in 2022-2023 and focuses on its activities to promote policy innovation; business and start-ups for resource efficiency; as well as lifestyles and youth engagement as demand drivers for sustainable consumption and production.

Sustainable living and lifestyles are being in the core and appear in the Sustainable Development Goals № 4 on Education and № 12.8 on Responsible Consumption. UNEP nowadays is taking unprecedent measures to accelerate action towards a healthy planet for the prosperity of all, inter alia, by addressing and promoting sustainable lifestyles and consumption to adjust to live within a 1.5-degree.

In this regard, GO4SDGs made a valuable contribution by introducing the Green Nudges Book and Program for universities to facilitate positive change by greening them and, thus, influencing behavioural pattern and decision-making. In other words, the Nudges were designed to inspire the students around the globe to adopt environmentally friendly habits and greener lifestyles. It also includes case studies of nudging interventions rolled out at universities with an opportunity for scaling them up and replicating, including in the Central Asian sub-region.

Current project follows one of the key recommendations of the Stockholm +50 international meeting called for recognizing the critical role of young people in environmental action and highlighting that further progress should be introduced to fostering meaningful youth engagement in all sectors of economy.

The main objective of present project is to introduce Sustainable Lifestyles with the aim to reduce the use of natural resources through a "net zero living" behaviour pattern. The project will empower youth and Universitates to embrace sustainable lifestyles and encourage practicing the sustainability in Universities of Central Asia through developing the Sustainable University Lifestyles Model (Pilot Activities on Sustainable Lifestyles with and through Universities), which will be first of its kind.

Thus, the project will entrust the Kazakh German University (GKU) to deliver a series of activities as it outlined below, namely:

Introduce Pilot Activities on Sustainable Lifestyles with and through Universities and self-ranking in the Central Asian sub-region through sustainable lifestyle-oriented education, research, and operation.
Build the capacity and raise awareness of universities and students on sustainable lifestyles’ related topics and Green Nudges, in particular.
Assist the development of the Pilot Activities on Sustainable Lifestyles with and through Universities at the Kazakh-German University.
Implement the Sustainable Lifestyles Festival for the Central Asian sub-region.