The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been described as “a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all people and the world by 2030”.

The School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at UCC is committed to integrating the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals into its teaching and research, exemplifying the value of responsibility to our future generation.

On the basis of our initial analysis carried out under the project ‘The contribution of UCC Research to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals’ as part of UCC’s Strategic plan 2017-2022, our research contributes to 9 SDGs with Goal 2 ‘Zero hunger’, Goal 12 ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, Goal 3 ‘Good Health and Well-Being’ and Goal 13 ‘Climate Action’ being the main goals.

The 17 SDGs are underpinned by 169 detailed targets which describe the specific issues and challenges to be addressed by 2030.

The specific challenges our research targets are

• End all forms of malnutrition (SDG 2.2)
• Sustainable food production and resilient agriculture practices (SDG 2.4)
• Reduce mortality from non-communicable diseases and promote mental health (SDG 3.4)
• Halve global per capita food waste (SDG 12.3)
• Sustainable reduce food waste (SDG 12.5)
• Integrate climate change measures into policies and planning (SDG 13.2)