Explore 3 Steps Companies Can Take To Achieve What The SDGs Set Out To Do
Embrace All Goals, But Identify
Where To Make
An Impact
Every goal is important, but the ability to deliver material impact requires focus. Consumer companies can choose to prioritize issues that match their core business activities. Whether it’s clean water, decent work or responsible consumption, a company can make a greater contribution to some SDGs than others.
Setting material targets and linking them across the supply chain are requirements, too. Many organizations have implemented science-based net-zero goals and are engaging with their suppliers to reduce carbon emissions. This kind of collective action on the SDGs is imperative because what’s material to each company is also material to the ecosystem they operate in and the wider communities they serve.
Advocate For Consistent Standards
There’s a clear need to integrate the SDGs with other frameworks—ones that provide the measurability that businesses need—in order to set uniform international and regional standards. This deeper integration will help define clearer targets so companies can map progress meaningfully.
Goal 13: Climate Action is one area that showcases how additional frameworks can improve standardization, enabling companies to better measure, manage and report transparently. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, for example, serves as the international corporate standard for gauging emissions, and the Better Alignment Project helps streamline the entire corporate reporting landscape.
Additionally, convening bodies like the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF)—a unique, CEO-led organization composed of some 400 consumer goods retailers and manufacturers across 70 countries—have the power to drive collective action, help address key challenges impacting the industry and create lasting impact at scale.
Collaborate At Every Level
In most organizations, change starts at the top. However, this is only the beginning of the journey. Companies must align their workforces and business cultures to a common set of goals to improve their chances of success. This means empowering employees across the business, whether in product design, procurement, distribution or manufacturing, to make decisions that align with the company’s sustainability values.
In addition, companies that embed the SDGs into their culture—potentially through rewards and incentives—are far more likely to achieve them. This might include encouraging employees to minimize their carbon footprints during business travel or recognizing those who champion sustainability in their day-to-day work.
Embed Sustainability Into Your Company’s DNA
Partner With
Other Organizations
Bring The Consumer On The Sustainability Journey
The SDGs won’t be achieved in a silo: No company or individual can single-handedly drive sustainability forward. Consequently, brands and retailers are prioritizing alliances—with their supply chain partners, with the communities they serve and with NGOs and governments—to make the SDGs a reality.
The focus of these partnerships must be on action and delivering impact at scale. Profitability and revenue competition are part of a healthy economy, but solving sustainability’s inherent challenges requires collaboration.
Most consumers have little awareness of the SDGs, only the pressing issues they address. Consumer companies occupy a privileged position that confers great power—and responsibility—in shaping consumption. As a result, they can incentivize more sustainably focused consumer behaviors in ways that other stakeholders cannot.
When consumers are included in a company’s sustainability journey, responsibility for achieving the goals is placed into the hands of everyone. This should be the rallying call for greater collaboration and proactivity across the board.
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