GOAL 17 : PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

GOAL 17 : Partnerships for the Goals

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is a prominent example of how working in a collaborative partnership can enhance progress in education and in the other development sectors. The GPE brings together developing countries, donors, international organizations, civil society, teacher organizations, the private sector, and foundations. The partnership model of the GPE mobilizes and aligns donor fi- nancing behind national education plans that are based on needs assessments and evidence-based policy-making. Businesses have the opportunity to engage in global education initiatives, offering a diverse variety of partnerships with governments and education organizations across the globe. Some examples of educational partnerships that could be engaged in are One Eleuthera (center for Training and Innovation), Nations play (a global learning program) and the ILead Program (center to promote a reading culture among children living in rural areas). The GPE is enabling marginalized children to have quality education .

UN GLOBAL COMPACT PLATFORMS

Early in 2017, the UN Global Compact launched four new platforms to accelerate the achievement of the Goals. These partnerships and platforms form a value chain in the SDG process, involving all the relevant links along the journey from ambition to action. The intention is to coordinate their work in order to make the chain as strong as possible.

The platforms focus on activating the SDGs in business worldwide by developing the following perspectives: 1. new solutions 2. new financing 3. new reporting 4. new innovation

The New Solutions Platform is a “comprehensive mapping of solid and scalable sustainable solutions.” Sources for this platform comprise of the UN Global Compact´s global network of companies, 80 country networks and more than 600 business schools and 2.5 million students enrolled in the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). For New Financing, Global Compact has partnered with the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and UNEP-FI to create a platform on “catalyzing financial innovation to identify innovative financial products that have the potential to redirect towards critical infrastructure and sustainable solutions.” Regarding the initiative for New Reporting, Global Compact will concentrate its efforts on developing a widely accepted reporting practice with special focus on “making the reporting useful and relevant for small and medium-sized companies.” And lastly, the concentration on New Innovation will manifest in what is called “Project Breakthrough” in partnership with Volans. The concept is to “connect companies with exponential thinkers and innovators – advancing the understanding of how disruptive technologies can be developed and form new business models.” Global Compact has also developed several Apps to help businesses to understand SDG ‘s.

The misallocation of resources, as well as the drive for profitable returns at the expense of humanity and the environment, has all begun to reveal that doing business and employing capital in this way is a costly proposition. The SDGs offer a growth potential of enormous magnitude that, when implemented, could mobilize trillions of dollars. Business and capital have the power, and are well positioned, to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity. While unlocking markets and guiding trends, capital expenditures for new markets that respond to the SDGs will become sound investments with stable returns. The power of the private sector to innovate and devise solutions is unmatched, and it must be harnessed to steer us in the right direction. By embedding SDG solutions into business models and directing capital toward the common Goals, businesses can scale up their impacts significantly. Shared value is an important model for both business and capital to create value not only for themselves, but for the environment and society as well.

PUTTING THE SDGs AT THE HEART OF CORPORATE STRATEGY DEMANDS A CHANGE IN MINDSET. Shifting the business model and mindset to meet the SDGs and present sustainable and valuable solutions socially, environmentally as well as financially is, in fact, a model that creates prosperous opportunities. Orientation towards solving the Global Goals creates an innovation driver for companies. It enhances the repurposing of the company to be an innovative part of global solutions, instead of a contributor to global problems. It means companies will reinforce themselves to create enduring, sustainable business models and thus strengthen their existence. Directing your business and capital towards the Global Goals is ensuring your company’s own prosperous future.

USING THE GLOBAL GOALS AND THE TARGETS AS A COMPASS TO DIRECT SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS CASES IS PROVING PROFITABLE FOR MANY COMPANIES ALREADY. Recognizing the many challenges faced throughout the world, and using the Global Goals and the Targets as a compass to direct sustainable business cases is proving profitable for many companies already, and is having a positive impact on people in all parts of the world. For example, the global retailer Gap, Inc. concentrates its efforts on SDG 5: Gender equality, and addresses several Targets within this Goal that not only enhance the company’s position but also hold potential to unlock new markets .

By focusing on the Global Goals, companies are directing their business behavior towards creating sustainable workforces and sustainable markets. Business and capital, when assuming the responsibility as a force for good, create many exciting prospects and opportunities for growth and endurance. Innovation, technological advances, and using the SDGs as drivers are propelling businesses and capital investors on a new trajectory. This new direction will benefit people and the planet, and will benefit the company’s bottom line in the process. The Sustainable Development Goals are truly the world’s greatest challenge and biggest opportunity. The response by business and capital to this has the potential to make transformational change that will set the stage for a sustainable future.

CHALLENGE

GAP SHOWS HOW GENDER EQUALITY CAN PAY DIVIDENDS BOTH FOR THEIR CORE BUSINESS, AS WELL AS FOR SOCIETY AT LARGE.” OPPORTUNITIES FOR SCALE

In September 2015, GAP announced a commitment to expand their program to reach one million women around the world by 2020. Their dedication to end discrimination against women is represented at the very highest levels with actions such as CEO, Art Peck, signing the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles. P.A.C.E is now being offered to global partners and peer corporations in an effort to broaden its reach and impact for women’s empowerment

THE NEW MEANING OF GROWTH

The SDGs support a new vision for growth. In recent times, growth has had quite a negative connotation, as the growth of companies, and economic growth in a wider sense, meant a negative impact on our world: more greenhouse gasses, more resources used, more destruction and more pollution. But now, growth is taking on a new meaning, accelerated and further clarified by the SDGs. Sustainable growth, positive impact, and responsible corporate ambition have entered the stage of world business. While keeping a keen eye on the Goals – and the ambition to meet the SDGs by 2030 – businesses are concentrating on not only minimizing their negative impact but creating positive impact as well. Thus, we must disconnect growth and negative impact, a connection that has existed since the industrial revolution. And we must latch on to a new revolution – one of positive impact for people and planet. Thanks to digital and technological development and the repurposing of business endeavors, we have an unprecedented opportunity to attach a new meaning to growth, namely: sustainable growth ensures societal and environmental benefits and an enduring business.

NET POSITIVE IMPACT “Net Positive is a new way of doing business which puts back more into society, the environment and the global economy than it takes out.”17 Trailblazing companies are embracing the ambition to “double the business but halve the impact.” This can mean that companies increase their positive impact on some goals, and at the same time decrease their negative impact on others. Becoming net positive requires organizations to be ambitious and plan for long-term success. They have to go beyond risk avoidance and incremental improvements and start to innovate. In 2013, Forum for the Future worked with The Climate Group and WWF to convene the Net Positive Group (NPG). This collaboration set out to develop principles, guidance and a measurement framework to help companies achieve net positive impact and plan for long-term success.

RECONNECTING: GROWTH AND IMPACT

Keep in mind that the disconnection of growth and negative impact is not the final destination of the journey. It is a focal point along the way. After disconnecting growth and negative impact, we must then connect growth to positive impact in order to reach real sustainable growth.

WE MUST DISCONNECT GROWTH FROM NEGATIVE IMPACT AND RECONNECT GROWTH TO POSITIVE IMPACT ON OUR GLOBAL GOALS. THEN WE CAN SPEAK OF GROWTH AS A FORCE FOR GOOD.

Carpet manufacturer Interface changed course years ago to create a positive impact with its growth . They are eliminating their negative impact and creating positive impact as they strive to put more back into society and the environment than they take out, like becoming CO2 positive by developing more renewable energy than they need themselves and therefore being in a position to supply energy to others in their surroundings. In these cases, growth is good. The examples show that growth in this respect makes a positive impact on the world. We can then truly speak of business as a force for good, and we can look at growth as something that contributes to the world rather than takes from it. As Jay Gould, CEO of Interface clearly states: “Business is the most powerful entity in the world and with power comes responsibility. To have a purpose-driven business you need to pinpoint the crossroads between what the world needs and where your company excels. At Interface, we have been committed to addressing environmental issues for more than two decades, and are approaching our Mission Zero goal to eliminate any negative impact on the environment by 2020. We are now focused on becoming a restorative business through our Climate Take Back mission as we work to address global warming.

By transparently discussing our regenerative approach our hope is it will inspire other businesses to challenge their own Sustainable Development Goals and contribute to creating a climate fit for life.” In the coming decades growth must, at the very least, be disconnected from negative impact associations and connected instead to positive impact. This transition is necessary to ensure that we reach our goals in 2030. As the Institute for Human Rights and Business so aptly puts it “Growth should be understood not as an objective in itself, but rather as a means to an end by providing decent livelihoods, increasing security and improving the welfare of all citizens. If growth does not deliver these, it has limited value from a development perspective.”

The value of growth is the creation of value for society and the environment, and certainly not the exploitation of the world’s assets. Exploitive growth with insular financial gain can no longer be tolerated and will, in fact, lead to its own demise eventually as it is simply not sustainable. Growth as a force for good, positive impact, and scaling up sustainable activities is the new meaning of growth.

Greenbiz reports that several companies have directly or indirectly started developing approaches towards net positive impact. Below some Insights

– Rio Tinto: one of the first companies to take on net positive impact approach on biodiversity. The company’s framework focuses on avoidance, mitigation and offsetting the negative impacts of its operations. This goal set a benchmark within the mining industry and with other extractive sectors that other companies are now aspiring to emulate.

– The Consumer Goods Forum, an independent global network of retail and manufacturing companies, is showcasing its ability to develop standard approaches with members through its intention to mobilize its collective resources to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020.

– Puma is developing an Environmental, Social and Economic profit & loss statement that will assess the benefits of their business against their environmental and social costs.

Climate Take Back is Interface’s newest endeavor to make a positive impact and take steps to reverse climate change. Interface sees the SDGs as the concrete building blocks for a continuation of what it already started to do in the 1990s.

Climate Take Back’s positive mission is based on 4 principles and points of attention:

Live Zero: Making sure no more carbon is put into the atmosphere.
Love Carbon: Using the carbon that is already in the atmosphere as a building block to make products and resources.
Let Nature Cool: Running their business in such a way as to not interfere with nature’s ability to cool itself.
Lead the Industrial Re-revolution: Sharing what they are learning, and have learned, to change how business is done.

CHALLENGE “ CLIMATE TAKE BACK IS INTERFACE’S NEWEST ENDEAVOR TO MAKE A POSITIVE IMPACT AND TAKE STEPS TO REVERSE CLIMATE CHANGE.”

OPPORTUNITIES FOR SCALE

Interface will scale up Mission Zero by extending the goals to suppliers in their Suppliers to Zero initiative. In keeping with the vision of Interface Founder, Ray Anderson, that business innovations should give back to the planet, Interface has taken steps to create ProofPositive, a carbon-negative carpet tile. Whilst in its infancy, the ProofPositive tile concept is the first step on the Climate Take Back journey to commercialize products that use bio-based materials and reverse climate change.

THE SHARED VALUE MODEL

Building on the ambition to move from reducing negative impact to creating a positive impact, the model of Shared Value has become the current, business-driven, sustainable model pervading sustainable global business and capital. The shared value model supports a positive impact for society, the environment, finance, and for all parties involved. It is characterized by the principle: Doing well and doing good are not mutually exclusive. Meaning financial success does not need to come at the expense of society or the environment. And creating a positive impact on society and the environment does not need to come at the expense of profit. Financial, societal and environmental benefits can be achieved simultaneously. In fact, at the core of shared value are societal and environmental issues which serve as the drivers in propelling profitable shared value business cases across a wide spectrum of companies and industries. In this regard, shared value is the ideal business model to support the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. The trailblazing researchers and business strategists Michael Porter and Mark Kramer first introduced shared value in an article they wrote for the Harvard Business Review in 2006 and later expanded upon the concept in 2011 with their article: “Creating Shared Value: Redefining Capitalism and the Role of the Corporation in Society.”

They defined the concept of shared value as “policies and operating practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates.” Companies of all sizes throughout the world are embracing shared value. At the 2017 Shared Value Summit, over 400 leaders from companies, nonprofits, and governments came together to help shape strategies and discuss innovative ideas that will accelerate this model. These companies and many others are recognizing the benefits of shared value and are ready to move forward away from negative impact avoidance and toward positive impact creation. Nestlé is one such company that has made shared value a priority in their business strategy and has embedded its principles across all parts of their business, listing an impressive 169 examples on their website of how they are creating shared value.

“SHARED VALUE IS BASED ON “POLICIES AND OPERATING PRACTICES THAT ENHANCE THE COMPETITIVENESS OF A COMPANY WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY ADVANCING THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE COMMUNITIES IN WHICH IT OPERATES.”

SHARED VALUE IS:

Reconceiving Products and Markets to meet societal needs and address unserved or under-served customers.
Redefining productivity practices to better utilize resources, employees, and business partners.
Enabling Local Development by improving the available skills, supplier base, and supporting community institutions to boost productivity, innovation,

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IS :

Adressing societal needs and challenges by giving back + doing no/less harm

Doing good Discretionary or in response to external pressures, no relation with competitiveness Separate from profit maximizing, philanthropy

Agenda determined by external factors and often personal or departments’ preference

No real influence on innovation, other than incremental

Operational and tactical issue Scalable, but from cost perspective

Seen as costs and legitimization of operations for investors

CREATING SHARED VALUE CSV

Adressing societal needs and challenges with a business model

Doing well by doing good

Integral to competing: propels competitive advantage in new, unlocked markets

Integral to profit maximizing

Agenda company, sector and market specific

Initiates radical innovation and incremental innovation at scale

Strategical priority, at the heart of business

Scalable, with profit increasing Seen as commercial opportunities for investors

SHARED VALUE IS A SYNERGY OF POSITIVE IMPACT ON SOCIETY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND THE COMPANY’S BOTTOM LINE.

Latest updates –

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The State of Nationally Determined Contributions: 2022

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GOAL 17 : PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS