There is a plethora of ESG and CSR accreditations (more of which to come in April) however, there are also many frameworks that can provide a useful starting point or approach against which to measure your existing sustainability efforts.
Background –
The world’s largest, corporate sustainability initiative, is the UN Global Compact. This is driven by ten core principles across human rights; labour; environment and anti-corruption and is represented by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which are underpinned by 169 specific targets. The Sustainable Development Goals represent the world we want by 2030 – “applying to all nations, leaving no one behind”1
Currently over 29,000 business globally have signed up to the Global Compact.
How is this relevant to business?
The UN Global Compact asks companies to first do business responsibly and then pursue opportunities to solve societal challenges through business innovation and collaboration.
They provide a different lens through which to innovate; drive efficiency and enhance reputation whilst tackling some of the biggest challenges of our time.
Whilst you can pay and join the UN Compact, which involves publicly declaring your commitment to operationalise the ten principles of the Global Compact; take action in support of the SDGs and commit to an annual communication of progress, it is also possible to take the many resources available to develop your own Sustainability strategy.
All of the goals are important. One of the first steps to using this framework is to review your existing business and prioritise which of the goals are most relevant i.e. if you employ a large number of people maybe you want to focus on no poverty; good health and well-being, decent work and economic growth and gender equality. If you are a logistics company, you may be more focused on industry, innovation and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities and responsible consumption and production.
Let’s break it down and look at a few examples.
No Poverty: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
We are living in a time defined by political instability, war and famine in many regions of the world. Closer to home, in the UK more families are accessing food banks than ever before and looking at other key poverty indicators, more individuals are struggling with day to day living costs.
What does this mean for business? Firstly – look at your business offering – how can you use this SDG to drive value? I am talking about holistic value not necessarily monetary.
For example, are you a living wage employer or do your most junior team members earn the minimum wage?
Do you sell products or services?
If you are involved in food production for example, how is waste dealt with? Is there a way of reducing food waste whilst supporting the community i.e. through providing products that aren’t sold to homeless shelters or distributed via Olio?
Whilst you may not feel you are able to afford to pay the best rate in the industry for a mid-level manager, paying a fair wage is likely to increase feelings of employee self-worth as well as reducing attrition rate (saving you significant time and financial resources in recruitment and onboarding).
Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy – Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Energy usage is a key part of an organisation’s costs – whether to power an office; create a product and transport it or running computers or a cloud based infrastructure.
Through reviewing your energy usage you can often identify ways to reduce it and associated business costs. By moving to a green provider (where you are unable to look at solutions to generate your own) via solar for example, you are also able to green your business. Through using solar you can potentially generate a revenue stream or provide a value add to employees by offering complimentary charging for EVs on site (aligned with an electric car leasing programme which would tie to SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation).
Goal 17, Partnerships for the Goals is critical
Shifting business to focus on collaborations and partnerships to drive mutual benefits is a core tenet that underpins the SDGs. For example, are there shared issues across your industry that all competitors are facing? Hazardous waste removal could be one area where by consolidating this waste disposal process cost less and / or through partnering with competitors or brainstorming this could feed into a circular economy model (i.e. where it is the input to another business’ core process).
Hopefully this gives you some ideas of how the SDGs can be made more tangible for business. If you’d like a more detailed assessment of translating the SDGs to a sustainability plan for your business please contact our Founder, Anjuli Parker for a free 30 minute call at anjuli@sustainablebusinessventures.co.uk
References
1 https://unglobalcompact.org/sdgs/about
Taken from https://d306pr3pise04h.cloudfront.net/docs/about_the_gc%2FWhite_Paper_Principles_SDGs.pdf