Yokohama has pledged to become a leader in city-led sustainability efforts. The city was designated by the Japanese government as one of the twenty-nine “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Future Cities” in the country in June 2018 and was also selected as one of the ten model municipalities with the most progressive visions to achieve long-term sustainability.

As part of its SDG agenda, the city launched the YOKOHAMA SDGs Design Center on January 18, 2019. The Design Center will act as a hub for various collaboration efforts among stakeholders to achieve city-wide SDG progress. Focus areas of the Design Center include sharing of knowledge and skills for problem solving among stakeholders, human resources development, marketing Yokohama’s SDG efforts and leveraging global partnerships and hosting pilot projects and other initiatives to accelerate SDG progress.

On March 13, 2019, Yokohama will host the “YOKOHAMA SDGs Design Center Partnership Forum” as an official kick-off for the Design Center’s activities. The program will feature talks by Mr. Masato Nobutoki, Director of the Design Center and Mr. Takejiro Sueyoshi, Special Advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and a panel discussion on the prospects of building a collaboration-based SDGs model in Yokohama, with distinguished panelists representing industry, academia and the non-profit sector. The event will conclude with a networking session which will begin with a presentation on a new pilot project to be launched by the Design Center.

The city is planning many more initiatives led by the Design Center in the future to propose a “large city model” to sustainable development that can be adopted by other cities around the globe.

YOKOHAMA SDGs Design Center (Japanese): https://yokohama-sdgs.jp/

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