Sustainable Development Impact

Our Sustainability Efforts

In order to maxmise the sustainability of the project, we first delved into understanding what sustainability is. Sustainability refers to the property of being able to keep something for an indefinite time. It means our efforts should have lasting impacts which can keep making a difference. It also means we should look at the future: can our project still have positive impacts or are there any long-term effects we would need to consider? In other words, can our efforts contribute to a world that is livable, fair and good for us, the world around us and all future generations? Where a good world refers to overall wellbeing; mental and physical health; production techniques in which resources are available for all generations to come; and ecosystems that can thrive, showing high levels of biodiversity.

Collaborations

Creating a truly sustainable world is undeniably a huge challenge, and no single team can achieve it alone. However, we believe that every effort matters, and we can make our own meaningful contribution toward a more sustainable future. The real strength in achieving sustainability lies in the collective efforts of all iGEM teams, each working on innovative solutions that move us toward this shared vision. By contributing our best to this common goal, we can collectively take a significant step toward true global sustainability.

Inner Development Goals

To create a better world for future generations, we must begin with the present one. We are encouraged by the growing awareness and more compassionate societies, yet it is vital to recognize both the urgency and complexity of today's global challenges. Understanding the importance of collaboration, systems thinking, and improving quality of life for current generations, we also strongly support the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) framework. The IDGs highlight the inner skills essential for sustainable development, focusing on personal growth, which we believe is critical for both individual well-being and healthy societal dynamics. Within our team, we prioritize well-being and teamwork. We participated in a workshop on team dynamics, led by Bram Jansens from Management Spark, where we learned about each other's personalities and behavior styles. Additionally, a workshop on collaborative communication, facilitated by our coach from Technovation Hub, helped us ensure equal participation in our team meetings.

Sustainable Development Goals

In the beginning of this page we tried to put into words what sustainability means for us. The UN Sustainable Development Goals concretise this idea of making the world a sustainable place by deciding on specific goals, targets and indicators that inform us about the state of the world. The SDGs are an inseparable and connected framework. Each goal is connected to the 16 other goals and none of the goals can be isolated [2]. Yet choosing a few SDGs as pillars to centre our work around allows us to be more concrete and from there expand to address the other SDGs as well. We have chosen goals 5, 12, 15 and 17 as our pillars.

Positive effects:

We set up an interview series with women in science to give them visibility, thereby reducing implicit bias and reducing the gender gap in sciences. More information about this can be found in our inclusivity guide . Additionally, we made a clue-based game Highlighting important women in science, this game aims to bring visibility to these influential figures and inspire girls to pursue careers in science, showing them that they too can become great scientists. Striving for gender equality is crucial across all fields, including bioremediation, as it intersects with many other factors. For example, we learned from Defne, part of the KU Leuven KICK Supetai project, how they are fostering entrepreneurship among women in the village where they operate while addressing environmental challenges. Achieving true sustainability requires equality in every domain.

Negative effects:

We aimed to make our interview panel as diverse as possible. However, due to the already low percentage of female researchers at our university, and even fewer researchers of color, it was challenging to find women from different ethnic backgrounds. We recognize that this lack of diversity may leave young girls of color without visible role models. At the same time, we hope this serves as a wake-up call for our university to address and improve ethnic diversity within its research community.

Positive effects:

Many of the metals extracted from wastewater today are not recyclable and often end up in landfills, where rainwater can cause them to leach back into the environment. With our technology, we aim to increase the recycling of these metals. The recycled metals can be repurposed for other uses, reducing the need to mine new metals and significantly minimizing their release into the environment. Unlike conventional methods that rely on chemicals to extract metals from water, our approach prevents these chemicals from entering ecosystems. We also anticipate that our method will be effective at lower metal concentrations than current techniques, aligning with stricter governmental regulations and helping companies stay compliant.

Negative effects:

Currently it is possible to recycle metals from waste and polluted water bodies, however there are only a handful of companies that come forward to do it, as it's economically exhaustive. There are still a lot of other companies that cannot recycle them yet and the startegies needs improvement. There are a lot of economically backward communities with serious heavy metal pollution issues, where they donot have the facilities to neither treat nor recycle it. Also, for some treatments, the conventional methods might still be cheaper, which is why we propose our method as one part in a longer process of steps. It can for instance be used as a polishing step or for one specific metal that is more difficult to treat with other methods. This is also what stakeholders in industry proposed to us. You can find more information on our Human Practices page. With regards to the supetai project we would first need to do more tests to decide on the costs and efficiency of the metal recycling before we can be sure that this will be lucrative for them.

Positive effects:

Life on land encompasses a wide range of aspects within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing on the health of fauna, flora, and entire ecosystems, including vital freshwater systems like rivers, wetlands, and lakes. We must take responsibility for the lands we inhabit and acknowledge our dependence on nature for its numerous ecosystem services and intrinsic value. By improving our metal recycling processes, we can reduce the reliance on traditional mining methods, thereby decreasing the need for new mines and preserving land for nature where biodiversity can flourish. Additionally, this approach will prevent industrial metals from entering the environment, thereby mitigating their toxic effects on local aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and protecting human health.

Negative effects:

We are working with genetically engineered bacteria, and their potential impact on the ecosystem can be unpredictable. Therefore, it is crucial to implement failsafe measures to ensure that our bacteria do not cause any unintended consequences. We propose employing multiple containment strategies and a potential kill-switch mechanism to minimize risks. Additionally, we use laboratory strains that are unlikely to survive outside of controlled laboratory conditions, further enhancing safety.

Positive effects:

As we discussed already, we believe that Collaboration towards a sustainable world is the most impactful initiative. Our collaboration with the KU Leuven KICK Supetai team provided valuable insights into the real-world application of our technology. Through discussions, we explored sustainable solutions for a Kenyan village grappling with water contamination issues. While the Supetai team successfully addressed high fluoride levels in drinking water using membrane filtration, this process inadvertently concentrated harmful chemicals and metals in the wastewater, creating new risks for nearby wells. This challenge underscored the need for a sustainable solution that operates without relying on electricity, positioning our bacteria-based technology as a promising fit. Working with the Supetai team enhanced our understanding of the complexities involved in water treatment and reinforced the importance of addressing contamination. Through this collaboration, we contributed to solving their challenges while gaining valuable perspectives on the human and environmental dimensions of water contamination, motivating us to refine our project further. We also exchanged insights about the potential sustainable impacts of our work with many other teams during meetups and individual meetings, establishing collaborations with the Athens and CNPEM-BRAZIL teams focused on sustainability.

Negative effects:

Collaborating with a diverse group also presents challenges. It requires clear communication and open dialogue where everyone feels heard. It's easy to assume a shared direction, but with many contributors, misalignments can occur. Therefore, discussing common goals and establishing a direction that everyone is comfortable with is essential to prevent collaborations from faltering over time. It’s also important to recognize the limitations and human factors of other teams. While enthusiasm for various initiatives is natural, success often depends on external influences. Rather than placing blame when things don’t go as planned, we should work together to find solutions and appreciate the goodwill and effort of our partners. By doing so, we believe that collaborations can yield beautiful results in the long run. Additionally, we attempted to organize a virtual meetup focused on water treatment, inviting keynote speakers, iGEM teams, and other organizations to come together, share knowledge, and inspire collective action on this common goal. Unfortunately, this initiative did not come to fruition. We trouble shooted our efforts in our Contributions page so that next teams have some tips to succeed in organising their meetup.

Stakeholder Engagement

We have already highlighted several ways the KU Leuven KICK Supetai project has guided us in exploring how our technology can benefit real-world communities. Insights from Ernenek Duran at One Drop and discussions with industry stakeholders provided valuable perspectives on the potential impact of our project. We specifically sought their input on how to enhance the sustainability of our solution. Additionally, we engaged with the Flemish Environmental Agency (VMM) to learn more about regulations and the current state of pollution in Flanders. To further our inclusivity efforts, we connected with organizations that support gender equality, such as Greenlight for Girls and BeWise, as well as the professors we interviewed about women in science. These discussions have enriched our understanding and reinforced our commitment to promoting inclusivity within our project. More information about this can be found on our Human Practices page. We would like to especially thank Griet Ceulemans who teaches sustainability courses at our university and was happy to advise us on our sustainability efforts and bring us in contact with the IDGs.

SDGs Impact Assessment

The SDGs are one whole and inseparable. Even though we center our work around a few SDGs, it is important to keep the full picture in mind. In order to make sure that we had considered all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we evaluated our project against all the targets.

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References

[1] Inner Development Goals. (n.d.). Framework. https://innerdevelopmentgoals.org/framework/

[2] United Nations. (2015, September 27). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

[3] Scotland's Nature Agency. (2023, July 11). What are Ecosystem Services? https://www.nature.scot/scotlands-biodiversity/scottish-biodiversity-strategy-and-cop15/ecosystem-approach/ecosystem-services-natures-benefits