In 2015, when the 193 international locations within the United Nations pledged to attain the 17 Sustainable Improvement Objectives by 2030, they dedicated to a transformational international shift for a more healthy, extra peaceable, extra affluent planet and inhabitants. Nevertheless, in 2022, we’ve discovered ourselves in the course of a special sort of nice transformation: The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a devastating toll on human life and livelihoods and threatened international methods that had beforehand been taken as a right, from meals methods to produce chains to public well being.
On the identical time, the pandemic presents the chance to construct these methods again in a extra resilient and sustainable means. Many revolutionary options to those issues exist already within the personal sector, particularly with members of the UN International Compact, a community this contains greater than 15,000 firms dedicated to sustainable and accountable enterprise practices.
On the mainstage at GreenBiz 22, GreenBiz’s annual convention on the enterprise of sustainability in Scottsdale, Arizona, UN International Compact CEO and Govt Director Sanda Ojiambo sat down with GreenBiz Editorial Director Heather Clancy to debate the personal sector’s progress on the SDGs at this vital time. The pandemic undoubtedly slowed progress on the SDGs, Ojiambo famous, but it surely additionally offers a brand new mind-set about them.
“I feel what has shifted, and it most likely shifted for lots of enterprise leaders within the room, is the urgency and the necessity for actual ambition and daring management,” Ojiambo stated. “The pandemic actually supplied a possibility for enterprise to step up, for enterprise to associate and for enterprise to innovate.”
So what’s going to it take to attain them? Ojiambo outlined 4 primary areas for enterprise at giant to deal with.
1. A strong reporting framework
Company reporting on sustainability measurements is gaining a foothold around the globe. Many firms are making a veritable alphabet soup of experiences, from the Science Based mostly Targets initiative (SBTis) to the Activity Drive on Local weather-related Monetary Disclosures (TCFD) to broader environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics. Reporting on SDG progress is equally essential, Ojiambo famous.
Ojiambo referred to as for context and broad frameworks for reporting: “We have moved past the idea that the success of an organization is simply grounded in its monetary well being,” she stated.
The SDGs cowl way over materials monetary points — they embrace poverty, water points, gender equality, human rights and renewable vitality.
To start reporting, Ojiambo stated firms should ask themselves just a few questions. “First, what are we reporting for? As a result of that preliminary motivation is essential — are you reporting for reporting’s sake or since you firmly consider it is essential to determine a benchmark and work in the direction of steady enchancment and be clear about your reporting?”
“The second is, what will we do with all of this knowledge when now we have it? Do you employ it to make higher selections, to drive resourcing or actions in a greater means, that lends to your organization and ecosystem’s success?” she added.
On that notice, the UN International Compact has its personal reporting system, referred to as Communication on Progress. It helps member firms with benchmarking and reporting to make sense of the place they’re within the business and their sector. Firms can look to others’ successes and be taught from their enterprise behaviors. Ojiambo stated that this communication can also be essential for the International Compact to indicate that an organization can exhibit measurable progress by being a part of our community.
2. Look throughout your provide chain
Final 12 months, as a consequence of the pandemic and financial shutdowns, the world skilled a provide chain and labor disaster. Manufacturing and shipments slowed, inflicting international items and companies shortages and affecting customers.
“Throughout the years of the pandemic, the availability chain was most likely one of the fragile areas, by way of [business] not likely totally greedy how all of the adjustments globally had been going to influence the availability chain,” Ojiambo stated. “Closing borders, adjustments in motion of site visitors and items forwards and backwards, and not likely understanding what was occurring perhaps from a human rights or labor perspective … Sustainability and success depend on the availability chain.”
She famous that companies must suppose by means of SDG methods throughout their enterprise ecosystem, given the fragile state of affairs. “Actually for us, it’s a possibility for reflection on the availability chain and how you can be actually constructing in sustainable enterprise ideas that can permit yourselves to be sustainable in the long run,” she stated.
Taking a company technique perspective is vital. “Your provide chain is just not incidental — your externalities aren’t incidental to the way you do your core enterprise,” Ojiambo stated. “Companies must take their entire ecosystem into consideration: Have a look at who your stakeholders are, and the influence of enterprise as a complete. So for something that you’d do at your headquarters, my query could be, can you are taking an evaluation of the significance of that work and run it by means of your provide chain and see what it appears like there? The place do you’ve gotten gaps? The place do you’ve gotten enchancment alternatives? And the way do you leverage your provide chain to really construct resilience in your provide chain for the long run?”
Partaking suppliers and consumers is essential for companies to make tangible progress on their SDG objectives and to allow this system-wide transformation.
“We regularly speak about Scope 3 for emissions, however you most likely must have a Scope 3 for all the pieces,” she defined. “What’s your Scope 3 round bribery and corruption? Round human rights and labor?”
3. Getting SMEs on board
It’s not nearly massive companions — it’s all of them, Ojiambo famous.
“There’s immense alternative for enterprise progress and sustainability proper now,” she stated. “The problem appears completely different from throughout the globe.”
In most economies, particularly rising ones, small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) play a significant position. The World Financial institution estimates that SMEs characterize about 90 p.c of companies and greater than 50 p.c of employment worldwide. Plus, they function at the very least part of most massive companies’ provide chains.
The World Financial institution estimates that SMEs characterize about 90% of companies and greater than 50% of employment worldwide.
If SMEs aren’t considered, Ojiambo famous, they might be the weakest level of SDG success. The UN International Compact is growing new packages and methods to assist SMEs, particularly by leveraging digital instruments and worth chains to succeed in scale. Ojiambo pointed to 1 notable initiative: a brand new intersectional gender and accountable procurement program.
4. Maintaining companies accountable
How do companies be certain that they’re taking motion on SDGs, and that this motion is driving actual change? Ojiambo stated that the reply is accountability.
“Any enterprise chief first must be accountable to self,” she stated. “You are working a enterprise for the long run. So the very essence of accountability wants to start out inside the firm itself. I feel the second essence of accountability is to have a look at your broader stakeholders and see who you want to be accountable subsequent to. It is essential to have the ability to handle buyer want, regulatory want, shareholder wants. Accountability for me is broad-based and faucets into the weather that an ESG framework brings to bear.”
Ojiambo famous that accountability is very essential proper now. “We stay in a divided world and there is a belief deficit,” she stated. “And rather a lot needs to be accomplished to deliver all that again to concord.”
That is particularly essential within the face of the continuing local weather disaster. “All of our future relies on having an setting that’s in concord with the way in which we produce and devour,” she stated. “So to the extent that we run the chance of leaving a future world very completely different from the one which we stay in. That’s extraordinarily pressing.”
Because the clock ticks in the direction of 2030, the challenges are mounting, however the alternative is immense. There’s already been “numerous good work and intent round understanding sustainability and SDGs, however now we have to see the enterprise and the outcomes,” Ojiambo stated. “And enterprise can play a key position in that.”
