Sustainable Pittsburgh

Equity Working Group

Using the colored icons below, select a goal to see the targets for southwestern Pennsylvania. Each target may also include Sample Relevant data sources, regional indicators, and Sample Local Programs and Resources. You will also see the corresponding global target. As with all visioning projects, these will continue to evolve.

No Poverty

Regional Targets:


The proportion of all families and individuals in SWPA who earn below a living wage is reduced by at least half.

Sample Relevant Datasets:

UNSDG Target 1.2: By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

Assistance programs offered by utilities, authorities, nonprofit organizations, and governments at all scales are more widely and equitably available and used by eligible families and individuals in SWPA, especially those who earn below a living wage.

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

Potential Indicators:

  • # of assistance programs
  • Applicants to assistance programs
  • $ provided
  • # of people receiving assistance as a function of population in need
  • Utility, authority, and government communications

Sample Relevant Datasets:

UNSDG Target 1.3: By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

Families and individuals of all races, ages, sexes, SOGIE, abilities, ethnicities, origins, religions, and other statuses–especially those who earn below a living wage–have equitable access to capital and financial services, including loans, debt relief, property, natural resources, technology, and others.

Sample Relevant Datasets:

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

UNSDG Target 1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance

Emergency prevention, response, evacuation, and recovery plans are designed to provide targeted support to families and individuals who earn below a living wage, hold family care-taking roles, and are most vulnerable to environmental, social, and economic shocks and disasters.

Sample Relevant Datasets

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

Public policy actively supporting the exit from poverty is coordinated across relevant boundaries and includes resident/community voices and collective power in decision making

UNSDG target 1B: Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions.

Quality Education

Regional Targets

Continuous improvement of educational institutions through removal of barriers and improving student options. Improvement is enabled by institutional governance structures.
Parents are educated about how to support quality education and provide student academic support at home.

Sample Relevant Datasets::

Local examples:

Ensure equitable resource allocations such that all have access to quality K-12, technical, vocational, and tertiary education, including university, and personalized learning opportunities and mental health and educational intervention services.

UNSDG Target 4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.

Sample Relevant Datasets:

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

Ensure equitable responsibility for and guaranteed access to quality child care, early learning, out of school time programming, and elder care.

UNSDG Target 4.2: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.

Sample Relevant Datasets::

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

Literacy and numeracy achieved for all individuals, with 100% reading at grade level and 100% attendance over 90% of the time.

UNSDG Target 4.6: By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.

Sample Relevant Datasets:

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

  • Pittsburgh Learning Collaborative – Literacy Working Group
  • Macedonia FACE – Hill District Early Learning Initiative
  • PL2 – Carnegie Mellon initiative
  • Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (United Way)
Ensure that all learners, at every stage of life, acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote a broadly sustainable region. This includes understanding human rights, gender equality, global citizenship, our relationship with the environment, and appreciating cultural diversity and its contributions, whether helpful or harmful, to sustainable development.

UNSDG Target 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

Safe spaces are available at any time in schools, facilitated by trained staff who can support the physical and psychological health of the children.
All students have access to the transportation, materials, and technology needed to participate in school activities, during and outside of school hours.
All learning facilities are well-maintained, safe, technologically current, and protective of environmental health.
All learning facilities are connected to the community, culturally affirming, accessible to those with disabilities, and inclusive of all gender identities.

UNSDG Target 4.A: Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive, and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive, and effective learning environments for all.

Sample Relevant Datasets:

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

  • The Pittsburgh Study
  • Mario Lemieux Sibling Center
  • Chill Project through AHN
  • Group Violence Intervention (GVI)
  • AFFIRM for LGBTQ+ Youth
  • Comcast internet essentials
  • Metro 21/Allies for Children/CMU transportation consolidation for school districts in the eastern part of Allegheny County
  • ACHD implementing policies/requirements equitably in school settings and addressing impact based on gender
  • Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation addressing gender equity in school settings
Increasing numbers of people are choosing education as a career, with educators reflecting the diversity of the students; disparities among educators of gender and race are eliminated.

UNSDG Target 4.C: By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States.

Sample Relevant Datasets:

Sample Local Programs and Resources:

Gender Equality

Regional Targets

Move beyond transactional LGBTQIA engagements to transformational regenerative actions that build trust.
Regardless of gender identity or expression, all residents are given respect and equal opportunity for inclusion and advancement, including at senior leadership levels across sectors.

UNSDG Target 5.1: End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.

Sample Relevant datasets:

  • Regional survey
  • Complaints
  • Wage data
  • Workforce Investment Board (WIB) provider data
  • Victory Institute data on LGBTQ political inclusion

Local examples:

  • Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation – addressing inequities in the workforce for LGBTQ+ broadly but specifically the lack of leadership opportunities and positions held by trans and nonbinary individuals
Eliminate all forms of gender-based violence in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation, recognizing the additional disparities in the burden of this violence added by race, ethnicity, and class.

UNSDG target 5.2: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.

Known datasets:

  • Crime data
  • Court data
  • Local orgs
  • Complaints

Local examples:

  • Planned Parenthood
Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health, as well as reproductive rights.

UNSDG target 5.4: Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate.

Known datasets:

  • School systems
  • Satisfaction surveys by health providers
  • Number/percent of people of different gender identities and expressions in leadership roles in companies, large institutions, and nonprofits (and other sectors)
  • Examine composition of local Boards of Directors
  • Allegheny Conference data
  • Visit Pittsburgh data

Local examples:

  • Vibrant Pittsburgh
  • Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship @ Chatham
Ensure equitable pathways for workplace access, career advancement, and economic security through policies that disproportionately benefit women, people of color, and LGBTQIA community members. These policies should include raising the minimum wage, eliminating or significantly increasing the tipped wage, and providing paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, and health insurance.

UNSDG target 5.5: Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life.

Known datasets:

  • Track local policies
  • EJGP goals
  • YWCA working to decrease wage gap, centering women of color

Local examples:

  • EJGP
  • YWCA working to decrease wage gap, centering women of color
  • Partner4Work
  • Unionization campaigns, especially UPMC
  • Paid sick days campaign at PghUnited
  • Allegheny Conference 2022 diversity commitment
Gender diversity is celebrated and respected in activities and in the use of language.

UNSDG target 5.c: Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.

Decent Work and Economic Growth

Regional Targets

Investments in regional economic growth are coordinated via multi-sector collaboratives that ensure a just and regenerative economy via resourcing vulnerable communities and groups, and empowering inclusive public participation in development processes.

UNSDG target 8.1: Sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and, in particular, at least 7 per cent gross domestic product growth per annum in the least developed countries.

Known datasets:

Proposed indicators:

  • Grants awarded to groups, businesses, municipalities, etc. in communities designated as distressed (PA environmental justice map, justice40 map)

Local examples:

  • Sustainable Community Development Network
  • Allegheny Conference inclusive growth roundtable
  • University local purchasing initiatives
  • Food Policy Council, CMU Hazelwood Green
The region’s economic growth is driven by an environmentally sustainable innovation economy with growth and opportunities in innovation ecosystems across racial, gender, class, and geographic groups.

UNSDG target 8.2: Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value-added and labour-intensive sectors.

Known datasets:

Local examples:

  • InnovatePGH
  • Green Building Alliance
  • Energy Innovation Center
  • Black Environmental Collective
  • Uptown Ecoinnovation District
Economic development policies and programs support equitable job creation, business development, entrepreneurship, and innovation across sectors and communities, with a particular focus on small to mid-sized businesses, local and independent businesses, and MWBEs.

UNSDG target 8.3: Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.

Known datasets:

Proposed indicators:

  • Number of businesses
  • Success of businesses, i.e. how many years

Local examples:

  • Riverside center for innovation
  • URA programs
  • CDCs
  • Allegheny County Economic Development
Workforce development policies and programs ensure that meaningful work and living wages are equitably accessible to people across all social groups and geographic communities. With a particular focus on supporting older adults, increasing workforce diversity in and between sectors, and facilitating just employment transitions in energy fields.

UNSDG target 8.5: By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.

Known datasets:

Proposed indicators:

  • Census data on employment cross-referenced with race

Local examples:

  • Age Friendly Greater Pittsburgh
  • Partner4Work
Workplace and public policy support safe environments for workers and protect workers’ rights, particularly for service industries, migrants, and traditionally under-employed groups (e.g., those with disabilities).

UNSDG target 8.8: Protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment.

Local examples:

Investments in cultural events, historic preservation, public art, public transportation, environmental management, outdoor recreation, and other quality-of-life programs and services. Support a thriving sustainable tourism industry that celebrates the region’s identity, advances environmental well-being, and supports economic development.

UNSDG target 8.9: By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products.

Known datasets:

  • Capital budgets
  • Data collected for the PPC equitable investment strategy
  • PA museum & historical commission grants
  • Foundation grants

Proposed indicators:

  • Foundation dollars given towards specific projects

Local examples:

  • Foundations
  • Pittsburgh Parks Conservatory’s equitable investment strategy

Reduced Inequalities

Narrative:

According to the 2019 report, Pittsburgh’s Inequality Across Gender and Race:

  • Across the Pittsburgh region, Pittsburgh’s Black fetal mortality is higher than Black fetal mortality in 94% of similar cities.
  • Fetal deaths are two times more likely among Pittsburgh’s Black women compared to White women.
  • Pittsburgh babies born to Black mothers are three times more likely to be under 3.3 lbs (extremely low birth weight) than babies born to White and AMLON (Asian, Multiracial, Latinx, Other, and Native American) mothers.

A follow up study with updated data, along with benchmark reports from other cities, are needed to better understand what has happened since 2019. The process to research and aggregate data needs to be community led with support from regional institutions and funders. It’s not enough to report on the inequalities in our region, we need action items to correlate with the findings.

Regional Targets

By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of overburdened and under-resourced populations at a rate higher than the national average. Paying special attention to the varying needs across these populations.

Known Datasets:

UNSDG Target 10.1: By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average

Achieve proportional representation in each economic sector, and at each level of seniority within.

Known Datasets:

  • Survey or something like the PublicSource board tracking project

UNSDG Target 10.2: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.

Improve turnout rates of elections through the increase of access to polls and the protection of voter rights, and candidate diversity, paying special attention to the needs of under-represented populations.

Known Datasets:

  • Can measure voter turnout and registration. Can also track policies

UNSDG Target 10.2: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.

Ensure all populations have a connection to social fabric in a way that enables success and eliminates social isolation.

Known Datasets:

Increase access to care across generations, healthcare, and paid sick leave.

Known Datasets:

  • Survey Data: People with Primary care providers
  • Homewood Children’s Village
  • State of Aging Survey
  • UCSUR
  • People who have insurance and barriers to entry for healthcare
  • BRFSS, Allegheny County Health Department
  • Non-profit provided sick leave/ time off
  • The Bayer Center
  • Family and Medical Leave data
  • Women and Girls Foundation
  • Elder care data
  • USCUR, Area Agency on Aging (DHS), age friendly Pgh.
  • Cancer screening rates, other medical services
  • Allegheny County Health Department
Eliminate discriminatory laws, policies, and practices within the policing and justice systems to ensure equitable treatment of all.

Known Datasets:

  • Arrest disparities by demographic, policies around policing (grief to action), Abolition Law Center
  • CONNECT (LEAD) Data to come, ALC, Allegheny Co Policing Project, CAASI Grief to Action Allegheny Co Policing Project (GSPIA)

UNSDG Target 10.3: Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.