By Claudie Eustache
In our last article concerning the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, we discussed on to integrate these in a plan or a Corporate Social Responsibility report. As with our own company WILL Solutions, we suggested limiting this to five ODD goals in order to have a detailed analysis of the results and to be able to measure the actions undertaken properly.
It’s only natural to pick SDGs that are related to the mission of the organization, however, it is also very much possible to add one or two SDGs that are directly related to the internal management of your activities or even an unrelated cause that your company champions.
In our last article we looked at the goals that were directly related to WILL’s mission and Sustainable Community model: the commercialisation of carbon credits destined from the voluntary market to fund local GHG reduction micro-projects.
However, SDG goals 5 (gender equality), 8 (decent work and economic growth) and 12 (responsible consumption and production) were also mentioned; why is that?
SDG goals 5 and 8 are independent of our Sustainable Community initiative and focus more on the actual internal management of WILL. The company values diversity when hiring, despite its small size, and is always looking for ways to better the working conditions of its employees; ways in tune with their own career and personal objectives. In order to formalize these objectives, the company is updating its employee guide et has just received its B Corp certification.
SDG 12 has an impact on our business in two ways; in our own in-house purchases and choices of suppliers as well as with our Sustainable Community members. For the companies providing us with everyday office supplies, we are searching for local and community-driven suppliers. For our Sustainable Community members, we search for those SMBs who adhere to our values and want to reduce the environmental impact of their operations by either investing in new equipment which will reduce fossil fuels usage or by significantly decreasing their trash output.
Being a small business whose main mission is environmental, it’s easy to clearly identify the SDGs linked to our activities. However, if your business is significantly larger or in a field in which the social and environmental impacts are indirect, it can be quite useful to consult this KPMG guide on how on to evaluate your impact according to the 17 SDGs. KPMG has also published an overview of how the 250 largest businesses in the world are integrating these goals in their daily activities.