Thessaloniki Sustainability Summit “Recording and Reporting the SDGs” (TSS2021)

September 15th, 2021, Thessaloniki, Greece

The 2021 “Thessaloniki Sustainability Summit” aims to bring together scientists, local authorities, politicians, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders to discuss the very significant issue of identifying, monitoring, recording, and reporting the parameters that define the progress in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The topic of the summit “Recording and Reporting the SDGs” is in accordance with the Agenda 2030 and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) as well as the European Green Deal. The 2021 “Thessaloniki Sustainability Summit” will comprise round-table discussions focusing on subjects of interest. The participation of scientists, government officials and other stakeholders from various countries, promises high-level panels expected to lead to interesting conclusions and outcomes.

Prof. Koundouri participated in the Second session, a panel of experts discussed in a round table the very important topic of “Recording and Reporting of the SDGs” which was moderated by Prof. N. Theodossiou and Professor G. Zarotiadis.

Moderators:

– Professor N. Theodossiou, Department of Civil Engineering, Chair of SDSN Black Sea
– Professor G. Zarotiadis, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Member of the Leadership Council of SDSN Black Sea

Speakers:

Prof. Phoebe Koundouri, Athens University of Economics and Business, Co-Chair of SDSN Greece, presented the actions taken at a European Level regarding sustainability, sustainable development and policy implementation. Furthermore, she stressed the importance of monitoring the performance of SDG implementation and the actions being done by SDSN Europe to aid the relative efforts.
Ambassador Michael Christides, former Secretary General of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), shared his views on the importance of cooperation in the Black Sea region
Next, Dr. Hanna Lappalainen, from the University of Helsinki, shared the Stations Measuring Earth Surface-Atmosphere Relations (SMEAR) Concept, which offers an observation platform that provides continuous, comprehensive environmental information from local level up-to the global Grand Challenges and to the UN SDGs.
Professor Nicolas Moussiopoulos, Department of Mechanical Engineering AUTh, Member of the Leadership Council of SDSN Black Sea, talked about the Urban Climate and the Air Quality in Cities and explained, among else, the phenomenon of urban heat island and how the use of aerosols impacts numerical weather prediction.
Next, Mr. Evgeniy Konishchev, Researcher at the Financial University under the Government of Russian Federation, shared his presentation about the features and problems of statistics in regards to SDG monitoring.
Finally, Mr. Simone Cresti, presented SDSN Mediterranean and their work on producing a Sustainable Development Report focusing on the Mediterranean Region.

Follow up:

In this year's Thessaloniki Sustainability Summit we discussed the very significant issue of identifying, monitoring, recording, and reporting the parameters that define the progress in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We were joined by esteemed experts, such as Prof. Phoebe Koundouri, Amb. Michael Christides, Prof. Moussiopoulos and Dr. Hanna Lappalainen, who shared their expertise regarding "Recording and Reporting the SDGs"

TSS2021 consisted of 2 sessions:

Session 1: Presentation of the results of the “Feasibility Study for a Black Sea SDGs Observatory”, a Project financed by the Black Sea Project Promotion Facility (BSPPF)

Session 2: Round table discussion on “Recording and Reporting the SDGs”

More information here.

You can read the follow-up and download the presentations here or directly watch the recording.