The Hong Kong chapter of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN Hong Kong) released on 11 September 2018 the findings of a city-wide survey of young people’s (aged 15–30) opinions about sustainable development in Hong Kong and their awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The key survey findings reveal that:
- There is an insufficient awareness of SDGs in the city. Only one in seven respondents (14.5%) said that they had heard about the SDGs.
- More than 90% of respondents identified the most important SDGs* as:
- SDG 13 Climate Action; SDG 14 Life below Water; SDG 15 Life on Land
- SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation; SDG 7 Affordable Energy and Clean Energy
- SDG 1 No Poverty; SDG 2 Zero Hunger
- The least important SDG was felt to be SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production. Nevertheless, 76% of respondents considered it to be important. This result is consistent with the findings of the ‘2018 SDG Index and Dashboards Report’ published in July 2018 by the SDSN and Bertelsmann Stiftung, which stated that ‘the world’s progress towards sustainable consumption and production patterns is too slow’.
- More than nine in ten respondents (93.5%) said that they were willing to support sustainable development, and most of them indicated positively that they would support initiatives related to the environment.
The survey was conducted in late 2018 to provide useful data about Hong Kong young people’s opinion towards sustainable development for the establishment of ‘SDSN Youth Hong Kong’—the youth chapter of SDSN Hong Kong. A Youth Network Coordinator and a group of SDG Coordinators have recently been recruited to lead and coordinate SDSN Youth activities at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and will take into account the survey’s findings.
SDSN Hong Kong said that it was encouraged by the survey results, as many of its on-going and planned SDG localization initiatives and partnerships were in line with the SDG priorities identified in the survey. They include:
- ‘Beyond 60°S’ Exhibition presented by the Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change (September–November 2018)
- CUHK’s plastic-free campus initiative (from September 2018 onwards)
- Hong Kong-wide Youth Development Programme ‘Youth 4.0’ (from September 2018 onwards)
- SDG Forum Series: ‘Business and Sustainability’ (November 2018)
- Distinguished Lecture on Sustainable Development (November 2018)
The SDG survey is also part of a Hong Kong-wide initiative, ‘Youth 4.0’, which aims to encourage social entrepreneurship and increase awareness of the SDGs among young people in Hong Kong. This initiative, which was launched on 11 September 2018, represents a cross-sector collaboration between academia, business and government and features a strategic partnership between Youth Co:Lab and the Hong Kong Social Enterprise Challenge (HKSEC). Youth Co:Lab is a partnership between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Citi Foundation, while HKSEC is organized by CUHK’s Center for Entrepreneurship and sponsored by the HKSAR Government’s Home Affairs Bureau. SDSN Hong Kong serves as the Sustainability Partner of ‘Youth 4.0’.
About the survey
The survey, conducted by the Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey (CCPOS) of CUHK, polled a total of 504 respondents aged 15 to 30. The survey was conducted by telephone between July 19 and August 7, 2018. Key survey results as summarized by CCPOS are available here.
*To streamline the collection of respondents’ opinions, the 17 SDGs were grouped into ten categories of ‘missions’.
