b"Key Themes Emerging from the Sustainability First Essay Prize1.Cultural, Behavioural and Societal ChangeKey issues repercussions of Covid-19 (including bereavement, ill health, job losses, precarious living condi\x00ons and reduced access to essen\x00al services), Ahighlytransmissible,zoono\x00cdiseasehaslaidbarethefragileentrants suggest that exis\x00ng travel restric\x00ons, more exible working humanenvironment interac\x00ons that are so obscured from modernschedules and the curtailment of regular ac\x00vi\x00es has placed a renewed modesoflivingandworking.Fundamentallyithasillustratedhowfocus on the importance of well-being, public health, nature and human vulnerable our globally connected socie\x00es are to shocks, which shouldconnec\x00onas opposed to a focus on GDP and consump\x00on. havebeenan\x00cipated.Theensuingpublichealthemergencyand corresponding restric\x00ons on movement have oered an opportunity for introspec\x00on and catalyst for behaviour change.How do we address inequality?Shortlisted essays that focused on Cultural, behavioural and societalEntrants also emphasised that Covid-19 has highlighted and accentuated changesuggestedthattobuildfromthecoronacrisistoamorethe inequali\x00es in our societyand around the worldand the fragility of sustainable future, we must reconsider: What do we really value? Do wesocial support systems. Among other impacts, in the UK lockdown has want to return to the way things were or develop a new normal? How doincreased the incidences of domes\x00c abuse7 and has illustrated the we address inequali\x00es in society? And, at a prac\x00cal level, what do welinkages between poor mental health and nancial inequali\x00es.8 Evidence need to do to maintain some of the posi\x00ve sustainable behaviours thatis emerging that Black and Minority Ethnic Groups are dispropor\x00onately have emerged in the crisis? aectedbyCovid-19,9withPublicHealthEngland10ci\x00ng:socio-economic factors, access to health care and depriva\x00on, among other What do we value? reasons for generalised health inequali\x00es back in 2017. WiththeBlackLivesMa\x00ermovementsimultaneouslygathering Though Covid-19 has undeniably caused a great deal of hardship (to ourmomentum in the US and the UK, shortlisted entrant Anneli Tostar makes physical, mental and economic health), a recent survey commissioned bythe point that we cannot repair systems to what they once were. Her essay the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, found that fewer thannotes that at the core of any economic recovery plan, if we are to rebuild one in ten people wants a full return to our pre-Covid world (Wood,sustainably, we must rebuild inclusively. The World Economic Forum 2020),6 sugges\x00ng an appe\x00te to learn from this crisis and to embed some(2015)11 has cited inequality as a central issue for the United Na\x00ons of the posi\x00ve personal, social and environmental changes which haveSustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and there is a growing body of emerged.evidencethatinequali\x00esinincomeandwealthcause:economic Entrantsiden\x00edourexis\x00ngBeforeCoronahighconsump\x00oninstability,arangeofhealthandsocialproblems,underminesocial pa\x00ernsasbeingdiametricallyopposedtoourabilitytodeliveracohesion and curtail the adop\x00on of pro-environment strategies and sustainable future. Moreover, where individuals have been fortunatebehaviours. Addressing inequality must be at the heart of how we build enough to reect on the situa\x00on, without suering the most urgentfrom the current corona crisis towards a more sustainable future. Andy Johnson, Assistant Editor and News Editor, the i paperIts important these aren't white middle-class issues. There are fundamental inequali\x00es of race as well as class. We need toensurethatwealthandopportunityareequally distributed. Which, I would argue, comes from a massive investment in educa\x00on.18 19"