Scouts in Denmark are achieving the SDGs through environmental sustainability

By Tobias Simonsen, #TeachSDGs Ambassador

In August, the board of KFUM-Spejderne I Danmark agreed on a new strategy for achieving the SDGs, with special focus on Goal 12 and 13.

Scouts in Denmark has got a new strategy for environmental sustainability. It all started in the spring, with the idea of enhancing the SDGs, but without prioritizing specific goals. It seemed impossible to work with 17 Goals at the same time.

Though the educational programs within scouting accumulated are enhancing most goals, we needed a joint direction for working structural with the SDGs.

In the end, Goal 12 about Responsible Consumption and Production and Goal 13 about Climate Action where chosen. We saw these goals tackled in many ways within the organization, but without knowledge sharing they were only in fragmented places in the organization.

The process of agreeing on a structure and method for the strategy took several months. On the one hand, we want to be the first Co2 neutral youth organization in Denmark, but on the other hand we want to tackle the low hanging fruits--the ones that we can do something about ASAP. 

We knew the strategy should not just be something the board decided; we had many inputs and ideas from different places in the organization. We felt this was crucial to move forward.

The compromise was to make an approach where new actions every half year would be decided as outcome of sustainability dialogue meetings; where everybody within the organization is invited to discuss environmental sustainability. The agenda of the dialogue meetings will change from meeting to meeting, but the outcome of the dialogue meetings will be the foundation for the next half year’s actions. 

As we say, “we don’t know all, but together we know more."

Our first environmental sustainability dialogue meeting will be executed in the end of the month, and I can’t wait to discuss the topic with all the scouts having dreams and desires for our joint future.

At the agreement of the strategy, the following seven actions were chosen as our starting point:

• Goal of SCENES (https://www.scout.org/scenes) certifying 5 scout centres with relation to KFUM-Spejderne I Danmark latest in 2022
• Create a self-assessment sustainability certification for scout groups, with inspiration from World Scout Environment Program (https://www.scout.org/environment)
• Create a homepage with all scouting sustainability educational programs, to make it easy to access materials
• Create sustainability principles for national scout camps and events
• Adopt sustainability as a core focus when collaborating with external partners
• Host sustainability dialogue meetings every half year, where all members can come with input and dreams for the work with sustainability. The results of the dialogue meetings will be the foundation for the next half year actions
• Reducing the number of extra produced member magazines and a maximum of 1 unit of the same magazine per address (so three members in the same address are not all receiving a copy)

The approach means many tasks and loads of discussions, but I am confident, that it is a great way to ensure joint direction.
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And let’s see, we are still dreaming of becoming the first Co2 neutral youth organization in Denmark – and dreams come true if you work hard. So what are we waiting for?

PHOTO: KarloGraphy https://www.facebook.com/karlographier/

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Author: Tobias Simonsen
Ambassador & Blogger #TeachSDGs and #iLoveGlobalGoals
Board Member #VoresBidrag and #CISUdk
Public Diplomacy Manager - Future Leaders #Tunisia_Denmark
​Twitter: @SimonseTobias