Achieving the sustainable development goals through public awareness

This chapter involves an exploratory qualitative study into the perceptions and opinions of nine UK university participants on the importance of increasing public awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the role of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in increasing awareness and their views on scepticism and cynicism. The results found that raising awareness is important for achieving the SDGs; however, participants disagreed on who needed to be aware of the SDGs. The recurring theme throughout the chapter was the importance of education, and HEIs need to use their influence and resources to raise awareness and encourage behavioural change. Despite the importance of HEIs, they will face several challenges in raising awareness, such as embedding the SDGs into the curriculum, student and employee engagement, and avoiding contradictions which could create scepticism and cynicism. A key underlying threat to awareness building campaigns and the achievement of the SDGs is scepticism and cynicism, which can be created by contradictory statements and false promises and is fuelled by the media.