First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, expresses his support for the ESDW.
PRESS RELEASE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Second European Sustainable Development Week, 30 May-5 June 2016
The European Sustainable Development Week (ESDW) is an initiative to facilitate the organization of activities that promote sustainable development and make these efforts visible on a common platform. In 2015, the first ESDW was a great success with 4,116 activities in 19 European countries taking place! In 2016 we will build on this success!
A PLATFORM TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN EUROPE
The ESDW website (www.esdw.eu) is an internet platform on which activities can be registered and viewed. It gives organizers of innovative activities the opportunity to promote their initiatives which will take place during the week from 30 May-5 June.
Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission, expressed his support for the ESDW, saying “The ESDW gives organisers of innovative projects the opportunity to inspire each other and contribute to building together a sustainable future for Europe. These are the kind of bottom-up activities which are crucial and must complement policies at national and EU level to ensure long-term sustainable development”
LINK TO THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs)
The recently adopted global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) articulates key issues that call for urgent action at all levels and by all stakeholders. The ESDW contributes to this ambitious, universal and transformative agenda by promoting the organization of bottom-up activities that have a thematic link to and support the SDGs. As such, the ESDW aims to raise awareness for the 2030 Agenda in Europe and calls upon local stakeholders to actively engage with sustainable development, in general, and the SDGs, in particular.
First Vice-President Timmermans added “Raising awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals is of utmost importance. To ensure their implementation we need new forms of governance and an alliance with civil society at large. The ESDW is an initiative that addresses this objective and encourages citizens to actively engage with the SDGs”.
TAKE PART
For more information, check out the ESDW website (www.esdw.eu), and find us on Twitter @EuropeanSDWeek) and Facebook (EuropeanSustainableDevelopmentWeek).
Link to press release:
PDF version:
