BSDC: Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals will create, for businesses, opportunities worth US$12 trillion
The “Better Business, Better World” report by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC) presents a sustainable business model, focused on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, that, if embraced by businesses across the globe, will prove immensely beneficial environmentally, socially and businesswise.
“At a time when our economic model is pushing the limits of our planetary boundaries and condemning many to a future without hope, the Sustainable Development Goals offer us a way out.” (Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, and a commissioner.)
According to the “Better Business, Better World” report by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC) sustainable business practices – with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals, as a point of reference – will, in the near future, create, for corporations, tremendous market opportunities in four economic systems.
These four economic systems are:
- food and agriculture
- cities
- energy and materials
- health and well-being
As the report stresses, the transition, by businesses globally, to a sustainable growth model will not be effortless or uneventful. Quite the contrary, it will be “disruptive, with big risks as well as opportunities at stake”. But very rewarding, too, as “businesses adopting this plan will transform their own prospects and could outperform those stuck in yesterday’s economic game: this is about return on capital, not just responsibility”.
Key points of the “Better Business, Better World” report by the BSDC include:
- “First movers” (companies that already act in accordance with the Global Goals) will enjoy a 5 to 15 year advantage
- Achieving the Global Goals will create, for businesses, opportunities worth US$12 trillion by 2030 Tweet This!, with more than 50% of these opportunities located in developing countries
- 15 of 60 market “hot spots” in the four economic systems identified by the BSDC account for 50% of this economic “prize”
- 380 million new jobs could be created by 2030, by achieving the Global Goals in these four economic systems – 90% of which in developing countries
- Progress on all Global Goals must be achieved for all the benefits to materialize
- Sustainability is profitable: attracting employees, investors and customers, creating, through innovation, new business opportunities, achieving cost savings and better financial performance are just some of the benefits enjoyed by sustainable businesses
- A number of innovative companies are already benefiting from the opportunities opened up by the Global Goals
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GRI is a non-profit organization working in the public interest towards a vision of a sustainable global economy. GRI supports and guides businesses, governments and other organizations in perceiving, understanding and communicating the impact of business on major, critical sustainability issues. Issues such as climate change, human rights, corruption and many others.
The goal of GRI and sustainability reporting is to promote change towards a sustainable economy by helping organizations to set goals, measure performance, and manage change.
Key facts:
- Over 80% of the world’s largest 250 corporations issue Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports using GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Standards
- GRI has global strategic partnerships with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Global Compact, with its framework enjoying synergies with the guidance of the International Finance Corporation, the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 26000, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the Earth Charter Initiative
- GRI is focused on taking action on what matters where it matters: companies identify their impacts on the environment and stakeholders, measure, set targets, take action to minimize their negative impacts and increase their positive impacts, report the outcomes in their CSR report
- Under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2010 the UN Global Compact adopts the GRI Guidelines as the recommended reporting framework for companies to communicate on progress made
- 17 Sustainable Development Goals: The guide “SDG Compass – The guide for business action on the SDGs”, jointly developed by GRI, the UN Global Compact and the WBCSD, details how companies can take action to solve our world’s most pressing problems.
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SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.
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References:
This article was compiled using a report by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the links below: