The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations General Assembly Open Working Group recognise the importance of the natural environment and its resources for human well-being.
Taken together, they provide a strong framework for the 21st century, as they seek solutions to the major challenges we face as a global community. SDG 7, focused on ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, directly connects with the work we do every day at iGEX.
Electricity, automated transport and information technology are essential to economic development and are also basic elements of modern society. That is why energy systems capable of meeting these needs reliably and affordably can be considered truly modern.
Energy must be generated at a sufficient and stable rate to meet human needs, improve living conditions and support the functioning of society. It must also do so in the most sustainable way possible, minimising waste, emissions and environmental impact.
All sustainable energy must be modern, yet not every form of modern energy is sustainable. Coal is perhaps the clearest case in point. Historically, coal was indispensable to industrialisation and to the advance of human well-being: that so many people today enjoy living conditions once unimaginable is owed in large part to coal. Its many advantages — abundance, wide distribution and ease of use — are nevertheless offset by a long list of serious problems, one that keeps growing in this age of population growth and environmental decline.
Access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all is a fundamental part of global development in the 21st century, and one of the clearest pathways to a more balanced and responsible energy model.