The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a global strategy for achieving economic growth that is consistent with the planet\u2019s carrying capacity, society\u2019s basic needs and priorities, and the capabilities and stability of the economy. \u00a0In this report, leading companies from the newly formed Rewiring the Economy Inquiry Group call for a compelling business narrative and a systemic approach to maximise the chances of delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Achieving the SDGs will be both a unique opportunity and a profound challenge. To maximise the chances of delivering the SDGs e\ufb00ectively and e\ufb03ciently by 2030, a compelling business narrative and a systemic approach are required to help shift current thinking about economic progress towards models that deliver sustainable development. Without this shift, business commitment is unlikely to be sustained and rewarded with commercial success.<\/p>\n
Comprehensively assessing business cases across 17 Goals and turning them into a practical and inspiring agenda is challenging for business and individual leaders, but there is an emerging commercial case for moving towards a sustainable economy. \u00a0This report shows that there are strong indications of robust commercial incentives to see the SDGs succeed, and for business to help deliver them. \u00a0Not only are there sizeable growth opportunities associated with implementing the SDGs, but failing to do so would undermine business continuity and stability.<\/p>\n
Given the signi\ufb01cant interdependencies between the SDGs, and their scale and urgency, cherry-picking the SDGs that have the easiest business case would be insu\ufb03cient and potentially counterproductive. \u00a0A more holistic approach is needed, whereby the SDGs are presented as a vision for the future of business in society that is capable of: inspiring interest and creativity, identifying opportunities for future growth, and framing strategy for di\ufb03cult trade-o\ufb00s and problem solving. \u00a0Companies will have to focus on a systems approach to actively help \u2018rewire\u2019 the operating context.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Useful reading for all interested in the goals and their realisation. \u00a0An early highlight for me was\u00a0Figure 2:\u00a0Six outcomes and ten interconnected tasks. \u00a0This is in section 2.1:\u00a0Rewiring the Economy:\u00a0ten tasks, ten years<\/em>.<\/p>\n'Rewiring the Economy' sets out CISL\u2019s ten-year plan to lay the foundations of\u00a0a sustainable economy that is capable\u00a0of delivering the SDGs. \u00a0The plan starts\u00a0from the principle that the economy can\u00a0and should be delivering the outcomes\u00a0demanded by the SDGs. It outlines a\u00a0set of ten interconnected \u2018tasks\u2019 that\u00a0target the systemic changes required\u00a0across government, finance and\u00a0business, including businesses\u2019 role in\u00a0enabling the structural and cultural\u00a0transformations needed. \u00a0These tasks are not unique to the plan. \u00a0Rather, Rewiring the Economy shows\u00a0how they can be tackled co-operatively\u00a0during the next decade to create an\u00a0economy that encourages sustainable\u00a0business practices, and thus delivers\u00a0the positive social and environmental\u00a0outcomes demanded by the SDGs. \u00a0Rewiring the Economy arranges the\u00a017 SDGs into six areas of social and\u00a0environmental impact: basic needs,\u00a0wellbeing, decent work, climate stability,\u00a0resource security and healthy ecosystems.\u00a0Each impact area encompasses one\u00a0or more SDGs, making it easier to\u00a0visualise the connections between them. \u00a0The Investment Leaders Group (also\u00a0convened by CISL) is developing a set\u00a0of metrics to help companies assess\u00a0their social and environmental impact in\u00a0each area.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are ideas in this which those in education who wish to focus on the goals will surely find of interest, especially if they compare it with Oxfam's Doughnut Economics.<\/p>\n
............................................<\/p>\n
**<\/strong> University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). (2017). Towards a sustainable economy: The commercial imperative for business to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Cambridge, UK: the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even business is taking the SDGs seriously. \u00a0This is, in part at least, because they are good for business because development is good for business; just as business is good for development. There's a new report [**] on all this...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}