Since 2015, the landmark Laudato si papal environmental encyclical, UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) and big data’s rapid increase have emerged together as key faith-justice-science collaboration points. Increasingly, global networks are uniting academics with grass-roots citizens, indigenous communities, faith-based organizations, and governmental, ngos, and for-profit organizations to take action on climate change, land use, toxins and other environmental degradation issues - all of which call for an understanding of science. What role can ecologists best take to utilize data to promote resilient communities in collaboration with faith/justice-based organizations? What best practices are informing partnerships between ecologists and faith/justice-impacted communities? We surveyed literature and information from science, faith community, and sustainable development groups since 2015 to determine trends in the use of big data in environmental problem-solving. Since the majority of the goals directly (eg. life on land, life in water, climate action) or indirectly involve ecological science, we examined big data use by faith communities, scientists, and development professionals engaged in environmental care or environmental justice to achieve the 17 SDGs. We explored how data are communicated and used and best practices for scientist-community partnerships.
Results/Conclusions
We found that big data is increasingly being used to achieve SDGs. From tracking illegal fishing, to using smart metering to estimate the use of resources such as water and electricity, to following e-commerce trends to understand purchase of energy efficient products, big data is used to monitor progress. While big data is used by sustainable development professionals, it is less likely to be directly used by faith-based organizations in achieving poverty elimination, medical assistance and other issues. There are some important exceptions such as the use of big data in humanitarian crises by a range of secular and faith-based actors and in tracking of land used by faith communities for environmental conservation, reforestation and food production. We found an increased articulation of practices that foster successful collaborations of scientists with communities to address injustice in the elements of: question articulation, data collection, ownership and decision-making. Big data is already being used in conservation and SDGs - areas in which faith communities are already engaged. Faith communities already use narratives to communicate scientific findings in compelling ways. Big data combined with effective science communication fosters ecological literacy, enabling scientists, faith communities and development specialists to more effectively work together to promote resilience in communities and achieve SDGs overall aim of partnerships for peace and justice.