Sustainable Development Goals
How Hope Drives Global Change
Businesses and communities worldwide are working toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a global effort to create a better, more sustainable future. Did you know that Hope is critical in making these goals a reality?
People and organizations with higher levels of Hope are more likely to set ambitious goals and achieve them. Why? Because hope fuels:
Belief in success
Confidence that people can reach their goals
Problem-solving mindset
The ability to overcome obstacles and find new solutions
Motivation to take action
The drive to turn vision into reality
When businesses, cities, and individuals cultivate hope as a skill, they become more effective in driving progress toward sustainability, equity, and global well-being.
There is a bidirectional relationship between hopelessness and poverty; those who live in states of poverty are likely to experience higher levels of hopelessness, and those who have higher levels of hopelessness are likely to experience more poverty.
Research suggests promoting farmers’ sense of hope promotes problem-solving strategies, leading to the development of improved farming techniques, methods, and a greater crop yield.
Hope has been linked to well-being across various populations, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students with high hope are more motivated and more committed to their studies, and the same is true for teachers. Teachers with higher levels of hope are able to motivate students who are the most “disaffected.” Higher hope is also school attendance and retention and predicts GPA more than IQ.
The prevalence of mental health difficulties is far greater in females than males. For example, 3 in 5 girls report persistent hopelessness. Hopelessness is often a consequence of oppression and discrimination and is learned. By activating skills for hope in oppressed populations, we can work to improve their ability to overcome challenges and reduce the mental health gap.
Research suggests Hope as a strategy to give people a pathway to solving the problem of water scarcity as they move from despair and hopelessness to a sense of empowerment.
Research suggests individuals high in hope are likely to take action towards developing clean energy sources.
Higher levels of hope can lead to a 14% increase in productivity within the workplace — more than intelligence, optimism, or self-efficacy. Hope also protects against depression; Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and the most significant cost to the workforce. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), depression causes an estimated 200 million lost workdays each year at the cost of $17 billion to $44 billion to employers
Individuals higher in hope have a greater quantity and quality of problem-solving /solutions and are more creative, which is key for industry, innovation, and infrastructure.
Hopelessness is often a consequence of oppression and discrimination, so it continues the cycle of oppression as all the related negative outcomes of hopelessness.
Individuals with higher levels of hope are less likely to return to jail. Lower crime rates inevitably make cities/communities safer.
Research indicates personal motivation, environmental motivation, and hope significantly predict an early adoption of green technologies. Thus, hope is a factor for responsible energy consumption, as individuals with higher levels of hope are more likely to adopt greener alternatives.
Many studies have found that hope is positively correlated with climate-change engagement and pro-environmental behaviors.
There is a two-way nature of the relationship between ocean health and human health. The ocean is vital to the health of humans, and we are vital to the health of the ocean. Higher hope is key to better problem-solving, and we need effective strategies to prevent and reduce ocean pollution will be key to protecting human health.
Higher hope increases the adoption of sustainable technologies in farming.
Hope is seen as an important construct for conflict resolution; hope is an intervention that can promote peace when resolving intractable conflicts. Also, Hopelessness is the only consistent predictor of violence; thus, increasing Hope can protect against violence within communities.
Individuals with higher levels of hope have greater positive connections with others and are more collaborative, which is necessary for healthy partnerships.