Jan 15, 2019
SocialPolis Coin: Decoding the project (part 2/7).
The need for strengthening the social dimension of sustainable development and how SPL Coin is moving towards a more social and sustainable future.
Sustainable development is a widely used term but far less understandable and even less developed. The concept generally sets out a three-dimensional lens from which modern people and governments should view the world. The basic idea is that sustainable development is a holistic approach to improving the quality of life linking it to economic, social and environmental well-being. Sustainable development promotes the idea that social, environmental, and economic progress are all attainable within the limits of our planet’s natural sources. Sustainable development approaches everything in the world as being connected through space, time and quality of life. These three domains are interrelated e.g. from a social perspective, individuals’ well-being cannot be sustained without a healthy natural environment and even a vibrant economy. The aim of this text is to highlight the need for strengthening the social dimension of sustainable development and to explain how SocialPolis Coin project is moving towards a more social and sustainable future.
Definition
“Social sustainability occurs when the formal and informal processes; systems; structures; and relationships actively support the capacity of current and future generations to create healthy and livable communities. Socially sustainable communities are equitable, diverse, connected and democratic and provide a good quality of life.” — WACOSS, Western Australia Council of Social Services.
Challenges
Understanding the connections and relations among economic, social and environmental spheres is challenging when analysing them from different point of views. Furthermore, there are several questions regarding whether certain social actions are more consistent with the concept of sustainable development than others. These actions include poverty reduction, social investment, and the building of secure and caring communities.
Poverty reduction
The United Nations Development Program [1994] described poverty as “the greatest threat to political stability, social cohesion and the environmental health of the planet” making it the primary objective of sustainable development. Tackling poverty is primarily a responsibility of governments, given how they seek to eliminate the gap in the earnings of rich and poor by progressive income taxes and transfers in the form of income programs (redistributive role of federal governments). However, besides the redistribution, they can make a significant dent in poverty by helping individuals acquire skills they need to find a reasonably paid employment. Besides governments, communities themselves need to basically cater human needs by ensuring adequate nourishment, housing, and protection from violence from their members by attempting to remove any existing barriers with regards to education, labor market and cultural events.
Social investment
As a vibrant economy requires a healthy and educated workforce, social investment is a prerequisite to economy development. Two major areas of social investment are health and education. Health care services and health promotion are both the basic prerequisites and objectives. Education and skills development are essential to the economic health of individuals and consequently, of nations. In order to compete in a rapidly changing knowledge-based economy, both developed and developing nations must invest heavily in education, training and skills formation. In addition, educated and informed intelligent citizenry comprises the bedrock of democracy.
Secure and caring communities
Within a sustainably developed community, each member is a caretaker of each other’s welfare. The base of a safe and caring community is the citizens themselves. One way that citizens engage with communities is through direct involvement in institutions and activities or alternatively, by enganging through community problem solving.
Social Sustainability in Business
Corporate operations management should be another part of social sustainability policies. In corporations, social sustainability performance issues include human rights, fair labor practices, living conditions, health, safety, wellness, diversity, equity, work-life balance, empowerment, community engagement, philanthropy, volunteerism, and more. Though social impact, or social sustainability, issues are not easily quantifiable or measurable, they are easier to be identified. Adrian Henriques, Professor of Accountability and CSR at Middlesex University and author of ‘Corporate Impact — Measuring and Managing your Social Footprint,’ states, “Social impact includes anything that affects company-stakeholder relationships: from how much and how reliably suppliers are paid, to how a product affects lives. From how small shareholders may be treated to the impact of alcohol on health and communities.”
According to the UN Global Compact, social sustainability should be a critical part of any business because it affects the quality of its relationships with stakeholders. Social sustainability is a proactive way of managing and identifying business impacts on employees, workers in the value chain, customers, and local communities.
The major effort towards a sustainable future
In September 2015 States Members of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is a holistic agenda seeking to shift the world into a more sustainable and resilient place, focusing on people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. Its key features include a strong intereste in reducing inequalities and promoting gender equality while putting the emphasis on reaching out to the people who are the farthest behind.
Seven reasons we need align with United Nations Foundation’s Social Development Goals:
1. Despite the considerable previous poverty reduction in the past decades, there are parts in the world where it still stubbornly remains. 783 million people still live on less than $1.90 a day especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia
2. Child mortality rates fell by 47 percent from 2000 to 2016. However, 5.6 million children each year are losing their lives especially when it comes to neonatal deaths.
3. Child marriage. Gender inequality continues to threaten girls and women around the global. The problem of child bribes is still here despite the recent improvement that reduced a girl’s risk of marrying in childhood by over 40% since around 2000.
4. Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy for all. The increase of the rate of population with access to electricity from 78% to 87% from 2000 to 2016 is still not adequate, as 1 billion people is living without access to electricity.
5. Economic losses in 2017 attributed to disasters were estimated at over $300 billion. These are among the highest losses in past years owing to three major hurricanes affecting the United States and the Caribbean.
6. Global hunger is on the rise after a period of prolonged decline. The number of undernourished people rose to 815 million in 2016.
7. Climate change action is imperative. As we mention above, people’s well-being is connected to the well-being of the planet. 2017 was one of the three warmest years on record. Rising sea levels, the most expensive hurricane season on record, and increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases demand accelerated action on the Paris Agreement on climate change, which has been ratified by 175 countries.
Having read the above, in order to promote a sustainable future and to tackle environmental decline, rising inequality and economic uncertainty we should take a more comprehensive and inclusive approach. A new paradigm that puts humans at the center of development is now a necessity.
SocialPolis Coin Project
SocialPolis Coin (SPL Coin) aims to become the world’s safe-haven cryptocurrency that enables a technological disruption in the Social Economy, Solidarity & sustainable development economy Sectors.
To begin with, SocialPolis Coin Project’s mission is to contribute to social and sustainable development economy. In parallel, it targets to contributing effectively to the EU’s employment, social cohesion, regional and rural development, environment protection, consumer protection, agricultural, third countries development, and social securities policies. The SPL Coin Project will focus on enhancing the local economies and the local development projects such as the support to “Small Islands” laid on the Greek Archipelagos and the development of several Smart Cities in the Greek territory. In the SPL Coin Project, it will be also be ensured that envisioned specificities like ethos, working style, corporate governance, specific accounting modes, asset lock, profits retaining, and special social objectives are taken seriously in account.
Noteworthy, Blockchain technologies and Social Economy share basic values and principles:
· Equal and transparent participation in economic growth for everyone in a responsive and efficient way.
· Decentralization and horizontal linking of nodes
· Distributing part of the profits back to the community/ecosystem
In this context, the introduction of a dedicated cryptocoin will boost social and solidarity economies globally, by reducing the financial costs within the sector, along with the cost of transactions between participants in a well-defined “ecosystem” of coops and NGOs while providing free availability of the basic tools to develop secure applications that will distribute the benefits of the technology to all its members.
