"The pandemic’s impact in Hawaiʻi highlights a global pattern: In times of crisis, the vulnerable often suffer most. Low-income households that depend on minimum-wage jobs are typically the first to lose them. Most of the service jobs lost during the shutdown in Hawaiʻi belonged to women and people of color.

Yet even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were problems in “paradise” — a phrase that has fallen out of favor in recent years among residents who argue that it whitewashes native traditions that protected the islands’ natural resources and ignores the systemic issues of inequality, poverty, and pollution that have arisen since western contact...

So how is the state responding to some of the worst and most urgent consequences of climate change while grappling with the economic fallout of a once-in-a-century global pandemic? By using the moment for a green growth recovery through the Aloha+ Challenge, Hawaiʻi’s statewide sustainability commitment is also helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals adopted by all UN member states to address poverty, hunger, inequality, and climate change. In fact, Hawaiʻi’s model was recognized by the UN as a sustainability ‘center of excellence’ or Local2030 Hub."

Altman, MJ. (2021, June 17). “How the Tradition of Aloha Is Delivering SDG Progress in Hawaiʻi.” Unfoundation.org, United Nations Foundation.