Jo Wrigley and Hannah Huggan SDG13: Climate Change

“We do better, together,” says Go Eco chief executive Jo Wrigley. 

Jo is a Manu Taki for SDG 13: Climate Change and is proud to be a champion for the Waikato Wellbeing Project.  

“The thing I love about this work is joining people up and facilitating conversations for the greatest impact.  At the heart of everything is systemic change.” 

Go Eco is a regional environmental trust with a vision for healthy environments supported by thriving communities. They seek to build capacity and capability across a diverse range of groups with a focus on biodiversity, enterprise, kai and transport as areas that hold potential climate solutions. "So this project supports work that is already happening in the community".

Jo says Go Eco is already working to the SDGs.  “They are a really good way to explain to people that sustainability is not a set of silos but they are a set of interlinking goals.”

“We are conscious that climate change sits in sustainable development, because it has to be there, but it actually underpins every single goal.”

“It is similar to the partnership goals in that Te Tiriti o Waitangi underpins everything.   It is about climate action as well and weaving everything into a common narrative as well.”  

Also aligned to the SDG 13, and representing the youth voice, is 17-year old climate change activist, Hannah Huggan. 

“Being a climate activist, it is important for our whole region, not just the Waikato.   So, taking that climate change goal…what does it mean for the Waikato, and the region, and the whole world?” 
“And I think the SDGs do that quite nicely as it is a framework that can be applied anywhere.  It is a universal set of goals that we can all achieve.” 

Huggan speaks of “climate change synthesis,” achieving the common goal of net zero emissions, while weaving people together, and unifying people. 

“We need to re-thinking the way we live and be saying, how can we be doing this better, can we live better lives?  We need to be achieving more and doing better.” 

“Systems change is huge and we have to be talking about what is on the table and that is climate action and climate change.” 

Huggan grew up in Singapore and studies political studies and maori and indigenous studies at the University of Waikato.  

She is proud to represent a new generation of environmental activists. 

“I am really looking forward to achieving the wider goal which was set by the Waikato Wellbeing Project and that is living in a more prosperous region, and I am really looking forward to that.”