The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The 17 Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030.
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a useful high-level group of global sustainable development goals that can be used as a framework to assess how your business makes a positive social impact.
This series of posts explores each of the goals and proposes some considerations for boards and senior leaders. The rising pressure on business leaders to make genuine changes in their operating model to ensure that their people, processes and systems work together to make a positive social impact means that trade-offs must be made with scarce resources.
Considering how to benefit all stakeholders means that careful consideration of your firm’s purpose business strategy and target operating model to realise that strategy is a crucial part of building a sustainable enterprise.
Traditionally, value creation for shareholders was achieved by delivering value to customers and earning a reasonable profit. Today, value creation for stakeholders is the more popular terminology.
What does this mean? It means keeping customers happy, shareholders happy, regulators happy, politicians happy, industry partners happy, suppliers happy, employees happy, and certification authorities happy.
This mixed group of actors is outside the traditional boundaries of the firm, meaning that when it comes to approaching ESG issues, a press release won’t cut it.
Environmental, social and governance risks have to be identified, triaged, managed, mitigated or eliminated through the risk management process. A board should set clear expectations around how the operating model of the business ensures that the capabilities developed to deliver value to stakeholders actively consider these risks both during project phases and in a business-as-usual environment.
Goal 2: Zero Hunger
Goal 2 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is Zero Hunger. In 2017, over 821 million people were under-nourished. Over the past few decades, enormous reductions in this number have occurred, but there is still work to do.
Differences in markets and institutions between developed and developing countries can explain much of the problem with hunger. Many states don’t have the infrastructure or even electricity to take advantage of agricultural productivity-enhancing technology at an appropriate scale.
One of the most disturbing statistics concerning hunger is the number of children who die every year from poor nutrition – 3.1 million each year. But merely sending more donations doesn’t solve the societal problems in these developing countries.
Businesses in developed countries can make a positive impact on the goal to reduce hunger in the world. An example of how technology positively impacts developing countries would be the spread of mobile phones, enabling farmers to trade more easily with neighbouring towns and villages to sell their produce or livestock, raising incomes and encouraging more trade inside countries.
One way the private sector can assist developing countries is helping the internal free movement of goods and services. Mobile phone networks, education, infrastructure investment in roads, and assistance with agricultural productivity are crucial.
How might a developed country firm help reduce global hunger? Consider pricing frameworks and intellectual property protections for agricultural productivity-enhancing goods and machinery. Is what makes sense in Canada, a wealthy developed country, necessarily appropriate in sub-Saharan Africa if you’re selling into that market?
How about the issue of subsidies and tariffs? Lobbying for tariffs on some goods predominantly produced in developing countries takes money out of the mouths of the global poor. Even more concerning is marketing cooperatives who play on fair trade to pay a fixed price for goods below the world market price and then capture the price premium for those goods in hipster neighbourhoods in developed countries.
One of the themes in the UN Sustainable Development goals is the removal of unfair subsidies and tariffs that disproportionately privilege farmers in developed countries over farmers in developing countries. If we consider global hunger, losing some farms in the West to keep bringing millions out of poverty in developing countries could be regarded as a reasonable tradeoff as long as the West budgets for appropriate transition payments and arrangements for the impacted farmers.
Banks and insurers don’t need to open a branch in a developing country to make an impact. Letting subject matter experts spend a month upskilling their peers or conducting a training course in a developing country is a modest cost but high impact way of sharing knowledge and capability.
If your global supply chain includes agricultural products exported from developing countries, performing due diligence on the supply chain is essential. Ending unfair labour practices and exploitation of small farmers is something any business trading with these countries should incorporate into their operating model.
One example of how adjusting your operating model to ensure that a positive social impact occurs is by physically tracing the entire value chain for a particular product.
- Who does the work?
- How is it done?
- How are they compensated?
- Is it fair, giving account to local realities and expectations?
- Where is it done?
- Who captures the value?
- Are there any health & safety concerns?
- Are there opportunities to provide upskilling or coaching to suppliers?
Corporate Governance Considerations
If your business trades with developing countries, you need to make investments in technology so that qualitative information associated with your supply chain can be captured and analysed for insights.
Setting up a framework for supply chain risk management with the right supporting policies and processes is a complex project. Many businesses are already doing a great job at ensuring the integrity of their supply chain, but this is a topical issue and emerging issues when it comes to agriculture must be monitored.
Eliminating global hunger is just one of the many UN Sustainable Development goals. As an exercise, working through the plans may convince you that your business can only make an impact on 1 or 2 of them. But the activity itself is valuable because using a high-level framework for considering social impact will enhance your understanding of your operating model and offer up possibilities for small adjustments that could make a positive impact on others.
The drive to have companies consider a more comprehensive set of stakeholders doesn’t mean that no one can make a profit anymore. Many sustainable business practices can lead to lower operating costs and enhanced shareholder value.
There is only one planet Earth, and using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as an initial broad set of considerations can help refine the purpose of a business. Simplifying your operating model and identifying business units that may no longer be suitable to own and need to be divested or shut down will be a natural outcome of more boards and senior business leaders thinking about these issues deeply.