How sustainable development goals work for business
Proposer: “We support the wellbeing of dogs.” Delegate A: “And cats? Can we include cats?” Chairperson: “Yes, of course. We support the wellbeing of dogs and cats.”
Delegate B: “Why are you taking such an exclusionary approach, focusing just on the needs of cats and dogs? I suspect this is yet another attempt to favour dogs and cats at the expense of other animals. It is a conspiracy.” Chair: “OK, let’s try the following: We support the wellbeing of all animals.”
Delegate C: “What about fish? Whales, octopuses, seals and penguins. We care about them too, right?” Chair: “We do. I think we can all agree, then, that the opening sentence should read: ‘We support the wellbeing of all animals, whether land-based or sea-based.’”
Delegate D: “What about birds?”
The above gives a flavour of how the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) were developed. A cacophony of voices and interests slowly corralled into a singular vision. It took years.
The SDGs are an agreement between governments (191 of them) on how to end poverty and hunger, respect the environment and stop wars. It’s big stuff. They are a successor to the millennium development goals (MDGs), initiated in 2000, designed to tackle these big issues by 2015.
The cynical reader will probably be saying “hey, haven’t they already tried that, like, thousands of times before, and it hasn’t worked?” Well, actually no. Something strange happened with the MDGs — they kind of worked! Across all of the goals (poverty, education and so on) progress was made, some of it impressive.
Take MDG 5 (maternal health). The global maternal mortality ratio had fallen by nearly half by 2015. And MDG 3 (gender) saw about two thirds of developing countries achieving gender parity in primary education, meaning boys and girls are now both getting schooled.
Previous development frameworks to end poverty or stop wars usually had a large chunk of hope inserted in the middle of them. The process usually went something like this: identify problem — check; develop a grand plan
— check; throw money at the problem — check; wait for a miracle to occur!
This is a facetious view, but it is not far from the truth. The missing middle — the miracle bit — is the measurement and tracking part.
The SDGs build on this “measurable” approach and also include one thing the MDGs did not. The private sector. Private sector engagement is acknowledged as critical if the SDGs are to have any hope of success. There are four elements underpinning this engagement.
First, the obvious connection is money. The SDGs are not going to be realised without private money.
Second is leveraging the infrastructure of the private sector. For example businessled initiatives such as research & development partnerships, knowledge-sharing platforms, technology and skills transfer, together with infrastructure investment, have the potential to enable productivity gains, generate decent jobs, strengthen skills and promote technological progress.
Third is the simple business case — new markets. According to the Business & Sustainable Development Commission (2017), achieving the global goals could open up $12-trillion of market opportunities in four areas — food and agriculture; cities, energy and materials; and health and wellbeing.
The fourth, and maybe the most important, is changing corporate behaviour. The message that businesses need to pursue social and environmental sustainability as avidly as they pursue market share and shareholder value is now mainstream, as evidenced by the huge growth of environmental, social and governance investing.
This is tangible stuff for all companies. The SA SDG investor map identifies investment opportunities across multiple sectors and offers investors actionable intelligence and localised insight into sectors and market conditions with profitability potential in addition to social impact.
The map is aligned to the SA government’s overarching objectives for reducing poverty, inequality and unemployment, and demonstrates how an investor might allocate capital to the four priority sectors in SA (infrastructure, health care, education and agriculture).
There are plenty of cynical views of how successful the SDGs will be, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic has been so economically and socially destructive. However, transformative change takes time, and to achieve success you need a plan. Thankfully, there is one.
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TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE TAKES TIME, AND TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS YOU NEED A PLAN. THANKFULLY, THERE IS ONE.