Welcome to Films for the Planet’s Documentary Resources for 

Global Goals 9-15 

The selections in this guide include aligned SDG’s, discussion guidelines, educational resources and a supportive educator and community toolkit.  Be sure to check back for regular updates as well as review the Streaming Collection for additional films that may be of interest.

User Guidelines

Copyright law and the “Classroom Use Exemption”.

If you are an educator, we recommend checking the films website regarding potential educational licensing fees. It is also good to know that Copyright law places a high value on educational uses. The Classroom Use Exemption (17 U.S.C. §110(1)) only applies in very limited situations, but where it does apply, it gives some clear rights. To qualify for this exemption, you must: be in a classroom (“or similar place devoted to instruction”), be there in person, engaged in face-to-face teaching activities, or be at a nonprofit educational institution. If you meet these conditions, the exemption gives both instructors and students broad rights to perform or display any works. That means instructors can play movies for their students, at any length (though not from illegitimate copies).  If a teacher is going to use the film in their classroom, and they teach in a public university or high school, they do not need the filmmakers permission to stream the film to their students.

If you are charging for a community event, review the film’s licensing information and select the right agreement for a theatrical or community screening. Also check for Public Performance Rights (PPR) which allow educational and non-profit groups to exhibit films to various sized groups where admission is not charged. To obtain PPR, consider partnering with Films for the Planet which is part of Compathos a 501(c)3 nonprofit in co-hosting your free event. Contact us at info@theal1.sg-host.com and check out our Art of Hosting Film Guidelines (Members Circle) for more details.

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Educator and Community Toolkit 

 

Microsoft Learning’s short course which has been designed for educators and all those who would like to teach children and young people about the Sustainable Development Goals, commonly known as the Global Goals. It is intended to support the teaching of the World’s Largest Lesson and all other efforts to educate and engage children and young people so that they support the SDG’s and want to turn their support into action. Make global connections through the Innovation Project which brings together schools across 85 countries to discover how innovation can solve global issues. Here is the World’s Largest Lesson: Teacher’s Guide.

The SDG’s Flashcards contain more than 200 questions structured into the four dimensions of Gaia Education’s whole systems approach to sustainability (social, ecological, economic and worldview). Participants explore these four dimensions of each of the 17 SDGs in question-focused small group conversations inviting them to collaboratively identify actions and solutions aimed at implementing the global goals in ways that are relevant to their lives and their communities. This is an effective way of creating local community ownership of the SDGs.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Multipliers Handbook offers a detailed description of how to prepare, promote and facilitate a SDG Training of Multipliers using Gaia Education’s SDG Implementation Flashcards. Download the black & white version of the Multipliers Handbook FREE here. Program overview click here.

Teach SDG’s  – the Global Goals Educator Task Force, in partnership with the United Nations, aims to strengthen the voice of the Educator in their sessions, meetings, and events pertaining to the SDG’s. Passionate about policy, advocacy, innovation, design thinking, and best practices in global education, they bring diverse perspectives and deep commitment to the SDGs and the children of our world.

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

 

 

Shift Change

From: Moving Images
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 9 minutes
Year: 2012

Stream: Films for the Planet: Shift Change  
Resources: Shift Change: Resources.

Synopsis: This documentary film by veteran award-winning filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin tells the little known stories of employee owned businesses that compete successfully in today’s economy while providing secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces.

SDG Goal: Target 9.3: Increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises, in particular in developing countries, to financial services, including affordable credit, and their integration into value chains and markets.

Secondary Goal 8 – Target 8.3: Decent Work and Economic Growth:  Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.

GOAL Number 10: Reduced Inequality

  

 

Reduce inequality within and among countries

Economics of Happiness

From: : Helena Norberg-Hodge and John Page
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 8 minutes
Year: 2011

Stream: Films for the Planet: Economics of Happiness 
Resources: Economics of Happiness: Activist Tools  
Economics of Happiness: Host a Screening
This English documentary can also be viewed with Spanish, Russian, Slovenian, and Turkish subtitles.

Synopsis:  The multiple award winning describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people around the world are resisting those policies and focused on starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to rebuild more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm focused on an economics of localization.

SDG Goal: Target 10.1: By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.

Money & Life

From: Katie Teague
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 26 minutes
Year: 2013

Stream: Films for the Planet: Money & Life 
Resources: Money & Life: Resource Library

Synopsis: Money & Life is an inspirational essay-style documentary that asks a provocative question: “Can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity?” This cinematic odyssey connects the dots on our current economic pains and offers a new story of money based on an emerging paradigm of planetary well-being that understands all of life as profoundly interconnected. The film is a tapestry of beautifully shot expert interviews woven with compelling vignettes of individuals and businesses consciously transforming their relationship with money. Together with dynamic animation, an original music score and an elegant voice of narration, the film tells a new story of money, but more broadly it tells a new story of humanity.

SDG Goal: Target 10.1: By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average. 

Secondary Goal: Target 8.3: Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

 

Becoming Homeless

From: Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab
Director: Elise Ogle, Tobin Asher|
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 8 minutes
Year: 2017

Stream: Standford University’s Viritual Human Interaction Lab: Becoming Homeless 
Resources: None listed

Synopsis: The recent trend in green architecture has decreased the environmental impact of the built environment, but it has accomplished little in the way of reconnecting us to the natural world, the missing piece in the puzzle of sustainable development. Come on a journey from our evolutionary past and the origins of architecture to the world’s most celebrated buildings in a search for the architecture of life. Together, we will encounter buildings that connect people and nature – hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children’s test scores are higher, offices where workers are more productive, and communities where people know more of their neighbors and families thrive. Biophilic Design points the way toward creating healthy and productive habitats for modern humans.

SDG Goal: Target 11.3: By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

Biophilic Design

From: Tamarack Media
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 60 minutes
Year: 2016

Stream: Films for the Planet: Biophilic Design
Resources: Biophilic Design: Website

Synopsis: The recent trend in green architecture has decreased the environmental impact of the built environment, but it has accomplished little in the way of reconnecting us to the natural world, the missing piece in the puzzle of sustainable development. Come on a journey from our evolutionary past and the origins of architecture to the world’s most celebrated buildings in a search for the architecture of life. Together, we will encounter buildings that connect people and nature – hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children’s test scores are higher, offices where workers are more productive, and communities where people know more of their neighbors and families thrive. Biophilic Design points the way toward creating healthy and productive habitats for modern humans.

SDG Goal: Target 11.3: By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

 

Edible City

From: Edible City
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 55 minutes
Year: 2012

Stream: Films for the Planet: Edible City
Resources: Edible City: Host a Screening
Edible City: Website

Synopsis: Edible City introduces a diverse cast of extraordinary characters who are challenging the paradigm of our broken food system. The film digs deep into their unique perspectives and transformative work, finding inspirational, grass-roots solutions based on growing local food systems and economies.

SDG Goal: Target 11.a: Support positive economic, social, and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning.

Secondary SDG — Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.

Secondary Goal: Target 15.9: By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts.

Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective

From: Costa
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 32 minutes
Year: 2015

Stream: Films for the Planet: Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective
Resources: Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective: Host a Screening
Inhabit: Website

Synopsis: This documentary explores the many contemporary environmental issues and examines solutions that are being applied using the ecological design process called “Permaculture.” This is a design lens that uses the principles found in ecosystems to help shift human’s impact on the earth from destructive to regenerative. Focused mostly on the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the United States, Inhabit provides an intimate look at permaculture peoples and practices ranging from rural, suburban, and urban landscapes.

SDG Goal: Target 11.3: By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

Secondary Goal: Target 12.8: By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.

Secondary SDG — Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality

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Living the Change

From: Happen Films
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 25 minutes
Year: 2018

Stream: Films for the Planet: Living the Change
Resources: Living the Change: Website

Synopsis:  Living the Change explores solutions to the global crises we face today – solutions any one of us can be part of – through the inspiring stories of people pioneering change in their own lives and in their communities in order to live in a sustainable and regenerative way.

SDG Goal: Target 11.3: By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

Secondary Goal: Target 12.8: By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.

Sustainable Design Master Class

From: Raleigh Latham
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 4 days 5 hours
Year: 2016

Stream: Films for the Planet: Sustainable Design Master Class
Resources: Sustainable Design Masterclass

Synopsis: The Sustainable Design Masterclass is a live webinar series featuring some of the most innovative, talented regenerative designers in the world.

SDG Goal: Target 11.b: By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and develop and implement, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, holistic disaster risk management at all levels.

Secondary Goal: Target 15.9: By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts.

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

 

Wasted! A Story of Food Waste

From: Joe Caterini and Lydia Tenaglia
Genre: Documentary
Duration:  1 hour 30 minutes
Year: 2017

Stream: Films for the Planet: Wasted! A Story of Food Waste
Resources: Wasted!: Host a Screening
Wasted!: Website

Synopsis:  Wasted! The Story of Food Waste aims to change the way people buy, cook, recycle, and eat food.  Through the the eyes of chef-heroes like Anthony Bourdain, Dan Barber, Mario Batali, Massimo Bottura, and Danny Bowien, audiences will see how the world’s most influential chefs make the most of every kind of food, transforming what most people consider scraps into incredible dishes that create a more secure food system. This film exposes the criminality of food waste and how it’s directly contributing to climate change and shows how anyone can make small changes – all of them delicious – to solve one of the greatest problems of the 21st century.

SDG Goal: Target 12.3: By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.

Tapped

From: Stephanie Soechtig, Jason Lindsey
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 16 minutes
Year: 2009

Stream: Films for the Planet: Tapped
Resources: Tapped: Host a Screening
Tapped: The Website

Synopsis:  This film examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil.

SDG Goal: Target 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment

SDG Goal: Target 12.5: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

The Revolution Movie

From: Rob Stewart
Director: Rob Stewart
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 22 minutes
Year: 2012

Stream: Films for the Planet: The Revolution Movie
Resources: The Revolution Movie: Educational Resources

Synopsis: This documentary is a fifteen country adventure taking place over a four year span that presents the evolutionary tale of life on earth. Through 3.7 billion years, five mass extinctions, and world’s most marvelous species, viewers experience see the dawn of the greatest movement that’s ever existed rising to save it.

SDG Goal: Target 12.2: By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.

A Plastic Ocean

From: Plastic Oceans Foundation
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 42 minutes
Year: 2016

Stream: Films for the Planet: A Plastic Ocean
Resources: A Plastic Ocean: Educational Supplement
A Plastic Ocean: Host a Screening

Synopsis: This documentary is a fifteen country adventure taking place over a four year span that presents the evolutionary tale of life on earth. Through 3.7 billion years, five mass extinctions, and world’s most marvelous species, viewers experience see the dawn of the greatest movement that’s ever existed rising to save it.

SDG Goal: Target 12.2: By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.

SDG Goal: Target 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.

Secondary SDG — Target 14.1: By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution.

 

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

 

Before the Flood

From: National Geographic
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes
Year: 2016

Stream: Before the Flood Screenings
Resources: Before the Flood: Take Action

Synopsis:  From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Fisher Stevens and Academy Award®-winning actor, environmental activist, and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio, Before the Flood presents a riveting account of the dramatic changes now occurring around the world due to climate change, as well as the actions we as individuals and as a society can take to prevent the disruption of life on our planet. Beyond the steps we can take as individuals, the film urges viewers to push their elected officials in supporting the use of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power.

SDG Goal: Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.

Secondary SDG — Target 7.a: By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel technology, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technology

Chasing Ice

From: Cinedigm
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 16 minutes
Year: 2012

Stream: Films for the Planet: Chasing Ice
Resources: Chasing Ice: Host a Screening
Chasing Ice: Resources

Synopsis:  This award winning documentary follows National Geographic photographer James Balog across the Arctic as he deploys time-lapse cameras designed for one purpose: to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

SDG Goal: Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.

Rise of the Eco-Warriors

From: Virgo Productions
Director: Cathy Henkel
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 44 minutes
Year: 2014

Stream: You Tube: Rise of the Eco-Warriors
Resources: Virgo Productions: Teachers and Students

Synopsis: This documentary follows fifteen passionate young people as they join acclaimed scientist Dr Willie Smits to spend 100 days in the jungles of Borneo. The film documents their adventures and reactions to the many challenges they face along the way. The core question of the film is this: what can a group of dedicated young people and a visionary scientist, achieve in 100 days in the jungle, and can they motivate others to take action for lasting change?

SDG Goal: Target 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.

SDG Goal: Target 15.2: By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally.

Secondary Goal: Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

Secondary SDG — Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning

This Changes Everything

From: Avi Lewis
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Year: 2015

Stream on Amazon

Resources: The Leap
This Changes Everything: Book
This Changes Everything: Website

Synopsis:
Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change. Inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller “This Changes Everything,” this film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.

Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein’s narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better.

SDG Goal: Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.

Secondary SDG — Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

GOAL Number 14: Life Below Water

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Who Owns the Water

From: Upstream Productions
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 50 minutes
Year: 2014

Stream: Films for the Planet: Who Owns Water 
Resources: Who Owns Water: Website

 

Synopsis: Three southern states are locked in a battle over the fresh water of the Chattahoochee River, a slow, muddy river that transformed Atlanta from a small town to a growing, thirsty metropolis. In this stunningly shot, award-winning documentary, the filmmakers return to the source of their childhood river and paddle all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, journeying deep into the water wars. Everything comes down to one question: who owns water?

SDG Goal: Target 6.1: By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.

Mission Blue

From: Insurgent Media
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes
Year: 2014

Stream: Netflix: Mission Blue
Resources: Mission Blue: Website 

Synopsis:  This Emmy Award winning documentary follows oceanographer Sylvia Earle’s campaign to save the world’s oceans from threats such as over-fishing and toxic waste.

Secondary Goal: Target 14.1: By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution.

SDG Goal: Target 14.4: By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end over-fishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics.

Secondary SDG Goal — Target 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.

 

Of the Sea: Fishermen, Seafood & Sustainability

From: Mischa Hedges and Melissa Mahoney
Genre: Documentary
Duration:  1 hour 25 minutes
Year: 2015

Stream: Films for the Planet: Of the Sea
Resources: Of the Sea: Host a Screening
Of the Sea: Website

Synopsis: This documentary tells the story of California fishing communities and presents a compelling story of the future of sustainable seafood. Here fishermen share their perspectives with the community and the world. Struggling to revive a fading way of life, fishermen and entrepreneurs are creating new models for how to support sustainably produced seafood.

SDG Goal: Target 14.4: By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end over-fishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics.

Secondary SDG — Target 12.7: Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.

GOAL Number 15: Life On Land

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Of the Land

From: Sound View Media Partners
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour and 29 minutes
Year: 2015

Stream: Films for the Planet: Of the Land
Resources: Sound View Media Partners: Of the Land

Synopsis: This groundbreaking 2014 Emmy nominated documentary television series explores the human impact of climate change. From the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy to the upheaval caused by drought in the Middle East, Years of Living Dangerously combines blockbuster storytelling with the reporting expertise of Hollywood’s brightest stars and today’s most respected journalists.

SDG Goal: Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

Secondary SDG — Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.

Symphony of the Soil  

From: Lily Films
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 44 minutes
Year: 2012

Stream: Films for the Planet: Symphony of the Soil
Resources: Symphony of the Soil: Host a Screening
Symphony of the Soil: Website

Synopsis: Symphony of the Soil explores the complexity and mystery of soil. Filmed on four continents and sharing the voices of some of the world’s most esteemed soil scientists, farmers and activists, the film portrays soil as a protagonist of our planetary story.

SDG Goal: Target 15.0:  By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts.

Secondary SDG — Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.

 

Love thy Nature

From: Sylvie Rokab
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour and 16 minutes
Year: 2014

Stream: Films for the Planet: Of the Land
Resources: Love thy Nature: Discussion Guide
Love thy Nature: Host a Screening

Synopsis: An award winning film narrated by Liam Neeson, Love Thy Nature shows how deeply we’ve lost touch with nature and takes viewers on a cinematic journey through the beauty and intimacy of our relationship with the natural world. Love Thy Nature shows that a renewed connection with nature is key not only to our well being, but also to solving our environmental and climate crises.

SDG Goal: Target 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.

Secondary SDG — Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.

Munduruku: The Fight to Defend the Heart of the Amazon

From: Greenpeace International
Director: James Manisty, Grace Boyle
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 14 minutes
Year: 2017

Stream: Greenpeace Facebook Page: Munduruku Trailer
Resources: Alchemy VR: Munduruku

Synopsis: Viewers find themselves amidst the indigenous Munduruku in Amazonia who, due to a dam project, have to struggle for existence.

SDG Goal: Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

Secondary SDG — Target 12.7: Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.

Clouds Over Sidra  

From: UN SGD Action Campaign
Director: Chris Milk, Gabo Arora
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 9 minutes
Year: 2015

Stream: You Tube: Clouds Over Sidra
Resources:  UNVR: Clouds Over Sidra

Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Sidra walks us through her “home”, the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan where she has lived since 2013. This refugee camp houses 130,000 Syrian war refugees, half of them children.

Target 16.2: End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children

  This award-winning feature documentary explores humanity’s wisest responses to climate change, species extinction, resource depletion, and the widening gap between the rich and poor. In addition to looking at the financial and economical paradigm underlying our planetary problems, this film offers various solutions to reverse the path of global decline.

SDG Goal: Target 16.2: End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.

 

Behind the Fence

From: The Nexus Fund
Director: Jonathan Olinger and Lindsay Branham
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 9 minutes
Year: 2016

Stream: The Nexus Fund: Behind the Fence
Resources: The Nexus Fund: Behind the Fence

Synopsis: Behind the Fence is an award-winning virtual reality short film produced by The Nexus Fund to give a truly insider, 360 degree view of the plight of the Rohingya. This Emmy nominated VR experience looks inside the 5×5 square mile camp that imprisons the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, and investigates the extremist Buddhists who propagate virulent anti-Muslim sentiment across the country.

SDG Goal:  Target 16.1Target 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.

 

My Mother’s Wing

From: SDG Action Campaign, Vrse, OCHA, UNICEF State of Palestine
Director: Gabo Arora, Ari Palitz
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 8 minutes
Year: 2016

Stream: With.in: My Mother’s Wing
Resources: UNVR: A Mother’s Grief in Gaza

Synopsis:  This film offers an unprecedented view of the Gaza Strip. It recounts the first-hand experience of a young mother coping with the loss of two of her children in the bombing of the UNRWA school in July 2014.

SDG Goal:  Target 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.

 

Sea Prayer  

From: UNHCR
Director: Khaled Hosseini with illustrations in Google tiltbrush by Liz Edwards
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 7 minutes
Year: 1017

Stream: You Tube: Sea Prayer
Resources: The Guardian: Sea Prayer: a 360 story inspired by refugee Alan Kurdi

Synopsis: This VR film captures the unimaginable loss Alan Kurdi’s father experienced when this three-year-old Syrian refugee drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach safety in Europe.In the story, on the eve of taking a potentially fatal sea crossing, a father reflects with his son on their life in Syria before the war and on their unknown future.

SDG Goal:  Target 16.2End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.

SDG Secondary Goal: Target 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.

 

Notes to My Father

From: WIDE
Director: Javisha Patel
Genre: VR Documentary
Duration: 12 minutes
Year: 2017

Stream: Jaunt VR: Notes to My Father
Resources: Notes to My Father

Synopsis: Her father married her off when she was 13, but like many Indian girls, Ramadevi was then sold to a brothel. Now she fights against the sexual slave trade.

SDG Goal:  Target 16.2End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.

SDG Secondary Goal: Target 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.

 

Poverty, Inc.

From: Brainstorm Media
Director: Michael Matheson Miller
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes
Year: 2014

Stream: Films for the Planet: Poverty, Inc
Resources: Poverty, Inc. website
Poverty, Inc.: Host a Screening

Synopsis: Drawing from over 200 interviews filmed in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity that cannot be ignored. The West has made itself the protagonist of development, giving rise to a multi-billion dollar poverty industry. From TOMs Shoes and international adoptions to solar panels and U.S. food aid, the film challenges viewers to ask the tough question: “Could I be part of the problem?”

Drawing from over 200 interviews filmed in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity that cannot be ignored. The West has made itself the protagonist of development, giving rise to a multibillion dollar poverty industry. From TOMs Shoes and international adoptions to solar panels and U.S. food aid, the film challenges viewers to ask the tough question: “Could I be part of the problem?”

SDG Goal:  Target 17.4Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress.

 

Resources for Businesses

Companies that build the SDG’s into their corporate strategies can differentiate their performance giving them a competitive edge. Here you can find inspriation for the Global Goals $12 trillion business opportunity and potential 380 million job growth strategy for a renewed world economy by 2030.

Gold Standard and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Switzerland have published a report, Business and the Sustainable Development Goals: Best practices to seize opportunity and maximise credibility to help the private sector define and deliver against ambitious strategies to help the world meet the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

This publication comes in support of the launch of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Switzerland, with a goal of connecting a global need with business opportunity. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Report from 2017 cites that, “the rate of progress in many areas is far slower than needed to meet the targets by 2030,” flagging the urgency to accelerate action. The Business and Sustainable Development Commission flagship report highlights that “achieving the SDGs could create 380 million jobs and help unlock at least $12 trillion in opportunities for business by 2030.”  Read more

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Find out more: www.goldstandard.org

SDGs: an opportunity for business
Seize these 10 business opportunities to get the U.N. Global Goals back on track
Global Opportunity Report 2018
Global Opportunity Report V.2

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development
UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform
UN Sustainable Development Goals: SDG Indicators
UN Sustainable Development Goals website
Winners of the First United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2018)

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