How we can create a sustainable and eco-friendly world for the future

The People’s Global Summit, ‘Co-Building a New Eco-Social World: Leaving No One Behind’ brought together individuals and communities, people with lived experience alongside global organisations to discuss shared local and global values, policies and practises for a new eco-social world that leaves no one behind as we emerge from the pandemic.

The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World summarises the key principles of the summit, including ways we can globally contribute to a world that is ecologically sustainable and socially just. It is built on five key values of:
- Buen Vivir; or love and care for people and the planet, responsibilities and holistic rights
- Respect, dignity, harmony and social justice
- Diversity, belonging, reciprocity and equity
- Ubuntu; or togetherness, accountability and community
- And Solidarity, equality, inclusion and collaboration.

The Charter suggests that acting on these values will require many people to re-evaluate and revise how we live all aspects of our lives – including work, the environment, relationships and sustainability. It emphasises the importance of education, reaching those across the world to inform how we can maintain a sustainable eco-social world.

The Charter also highlights the awareness of ‘implications for our sustainable shared futures’, emphasising the importance of reciprocal relationships, maintaining peace in society, respect for nature, social justice and equality and how these elements are collectively inter-linked when focusing on changes for the future.

The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World also establishes the importance of ‘The Pathway Forward’ and how, as a result of the summit, we can progress together, taking universal actions on ecological integrity, economic reform, international solidarity, employment, and work and state social protection.

Opened by Antonio Guterres, Secretary- General of the United Nations, and the environmental and climate activist Kumi Naidoo from South Africa, the conference was led by a range of International and Global organisations including The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), as well as the Commonwealth Organisation for Social Work, Commonwealth Youth Programme, Conference of International Non-Governmental Organisations of the Council of Europe, FaithInvest and more.

A variety of sessions took place during The People’s Global Summit to discuss and recognise key themes to help create and sustain a new eco-social world, and all contributions are still available to watch.
View the full programme and contribution book here https://newecosocialworld.com/summit-programme/

Sessions included talks from Peter Beresford OBE, one of the founding partners of an international network of educators, service users and carers, who spoke about the importance of building trust between professionals and those they work with.

Najma Mohamed, Policy Director at the Green Economy Coalition, also spoke about the unexpected link between climate change, biodiversity loss and inequality, and the question of creating a new social contract for social workers and workers across the globe.