GLAM Peak and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, July 2020

GLAM Peak is the peak representative national body for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums together with historical societies and humanities research across Australia. GLAM Peak's initiatives include sector-wide advocacy and the federally-funded Digital Access to Collections project. The GLAM sector’s strongest response to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to date has been at an institutional and peak body level, but the SDG are highly relevant for everyone involved in arts, culture and heritage – for curators, librarians, archivists, historians, researchers and the public who benefit from our work.
 
On 29 October 2019, participants at the GLAM Peak meeting at the State Library of Queensland developed a draft set of sector-wide Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) priorities. Members identified five themes – access, diversity, environmental sustainability, economic contribution and collaboration – and 12 priorities for further exploration. Further consultation with peak bodies and their members rounded out the draft priorities. While our day-to-day primary focus as a sector is necessarily on the national agenda, the crucial need for a global approach to sustainability became even more evident in 2020 as a result of Australia’s devastating bushfires, extreme weather conditions and the unleashing of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
This document presents the set of GLAM Peak SDG priorities confirmed at the meeting of GLAM Peak on 28 July 2020. The agreed document will be used to inform the thinking of institutions and other stakeholders about the SDG; to drive SDG-related activities in the sector, and to act as indicators of progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.