P4G Summit Copenhagen: Partnering For Green Growth To Reach Sustainable Development Goals

This weekend, the Danish Government is the first to host a new summit on partnering for green growth to help reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for 2030. From p4gpartnerships.org:

P4G – Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 – is a new initiative, commenced in 2018, with the ambition of becoming the world’s leading forum for developing concrete public-private partnerships at scale to deliver on the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement. We bring together business, government, and civil society organizations in innovative public-private partnerships to advance solutions that help meet humanity’s greatest needs in five key areas: food and agriculture, water, energy, cities and circular economy. 

While partnerships between public institutions and private businesses are nothing new, it is new to have a dedicated organization where the foundation of collaboration is based on the SDG and the Paris Climate Agreement.

P4G’s initial partner countries include: Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mexico, South Korea, and Vietnam. Partner organizations include: the Global Green Growth Institute, C40 Cities, the World Economic Forum, and hosting partner World Resources Institute.

The Danish government has provided initial funding for P4G through a five-year grant to get the ball rolling, and this is how they see it develop:

P4G works with its partners at the global, regional and national levels to identify public-private partnerships that present solutions to humanity’s greatest needs as related to food, water, energy and sustainable development. P4G then offers facilitation and/or co-funding support and recognition to these partnerships to help prove the validity of a business model, launch a pilot or accelerate growth to create a sustainable venture.

P4G also convenes government, business and civil society leaders at events such as summits, meetings, workshops, and webinars and shares knowledge through publications and the website.

Ian de Cruz, Global Director of P4G explains the concept clearly in this video:

As an example of the partnerships the P4G is hoping to spawn is a group of engineering students from Aarhus University attending the initiative “Next Generation P4G” which seeks to engage youth. They are presenting a modular solar kiosk system at the P4G summit this weekend that they hope to bring to the real world with the help from a Dutch manufacturer.

It’s good to see so many initiatives like this taking shape all over the world. The threat of climate change is indeed dire, but it’s inspiring to witness governments, businesses, and students working together to accelerate real solutions.