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12. Dezember 2023
No poverty, no hunger, peace: In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were supposed to make the world a better place by 2030. Now it is half-time. The results are sobering. In the remaining time, measures must be more targeted and more effective. On the occasion of COP28 in Dubai, the Global Goals Yearbook is focusing on the aspect of impact.


With the rising frequency of major environmental events and social movements – from floods to wildfires, and #MeToo to Black Lives Matter – the objective of making the world a better place has gone from personal choice to global necessity. The 2021 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issuing a “code red for humanity” represented another urgent wake-up call.


According to Force for Good’s annual report, the total cost of achieving the SDGs has increased by up to 25 percent in the last year alone, from $116–142tn to $134–176tn. This has been driven by systemic underfunding, high inflation, increasingly urgent requirements for hitting net zero, and an ever-shortening window in which to get all of this done.


Although investors have become increasingly aware of the role their capital should play in addressing environmental and social concerns, the challenge has been to combine the twin goals of “doing good” and “earning a return” in a single investment.


Impact projects offer an answer by providing a credible and scalable pathway to balancing a targeted, measurable, and beneficial environmental or social impact on the one hand, with a financial return on the other. Dr. Elmer Lenzen, chair of the macondo foundation: „Impact relates to both the focus on solutions and the opportunities created. Many „handprint„ opportunities that are intended to contribute to sustainability objectives, revolve around new technologies and services that seek to shift the mechanics of our daily lives fundamentally.„


Consensus has also emerged that impact projects should contribute to at least one, and preferably several, of the 17 UN SDGs. The involvement of the private sector is critical in helping to achieve these goals, not least because of the increasing shortfall in investment capital needed to finance the SDGs.


Raising the bar on transparency and reporting can help the industry deliver on its promise and insulate itself from accusations of “impact washing,” whereby funds make claims that are not substantiated by any relevant or demonstrable positive impact. In addition, monitoring the progress of investments in achieving impact against expectations helps improve decision-making and delivery.


The importance of impact is not only growing on the financial markets, but also in many practical projects with NGOs, politics and companies involved. What is missing, however, are binding indicators that ensure a holistic assessment of corporate performance. As long as these indicators are lacking, comparability becomes difficult.


The new Global Goals Yearbook 2023 closes this gap: Sustainability projects are linked to the specific SDG sub-goals and concrete indicators are used to measure success. The Global Goals become performant and the answer to one of the most important practical questions comes closer: How much perfection is needed and when is ‘good’ good enough?”



4. Oktober 2022

According to a survey, almost two-thirds of large companies in the G20 countries say that dealing with the climate crisis and the resulting sustainability initiatives poses a major challenge for them. Forty-five percent lament the search for qualified staff as being a major problem. More than a quarter consider a sustainable supply chain to be a particularly difficult challenge. The war in Ukraine also shows that ESG is not a “nice to have,” but a fundamental part of management decisions.

In the professional world, the term ESG (environment, social, and governance criteria) is increasingly gaining acceptance. The term comes from the world of finance and is still very closely linked to it today, for example in the context of the EU financial taxonomy. In this chapter, the Global Goals Yearbook highlights the most important factors to keep in mind.

Rethinking ESG as a strategic driver for business transformation

ESG transformation involves risks, but it also offers opportunities for governments, companies, investors, and society by creating value through solving social and environmental problems. “Investors, lenders, and rating agencies expect greater visibility of non-financial metrics to better understand diverse social and environmental risks,” say Peter Grassmann, Casey Herman, and Colm Kelly, authors of the article “Are You Ready for the ESG Revolution?”

“Governments are forced to reduce emissions due to new regulations and taxes. Activist shareholders, among other stakeholders, are advocating for tighter linkages between ESG targets and executive compensation packages. And conscious consumers are voting with their wallets and valuing companies with purpose and diversity in their workforce,” the authors say.

According to a recent PwC survey, nearly 75 percent of organization leaders are still in the early stages of their ESG journey. A few companies, though, have begun reorienting their businesses toward a value-creation ecosystem that adds environmental sustainability, employee engagement, external partnerships, and broader social impact as measures of success. Whatever the starting point for the ESG dialogue, the project will require changes in all dimensions of a business, including strategic decision-making, implementation of the new direction, and reporting on progress and outcomes. In this sense, companies should tackle some important issues to build trust among – and deliver sustained outcomes to – their stakeholders.

  • Reimagined reporting: Everything from carbon emissions to racial and gender balance are being assessed as ESG risks.
  • Strategic reinvention: To make progress with new metrics, companies must rethink their ESG strategy and redefine not only what the business does, but how it does it.
  • Business transformation: A business that begins to report on broader non-financial metrics will have to internalize ESG into its strategy and report on both progress and outcomes.

“Senior leaders have a critical role in driving this transformation agenda, which is not separate from ongoing digital transformation,” the authors say. Part of the challenge is the proliferation of ESG ratings and risk-assessment metrics that are based on different criteria. Not surprisingly, the “lack of reporting standards” was cited as the top barrier to ESG effectiveness by executives in the PwC survey.

Leading the transformation

ESG transformation requires leadership that is capable of connecting sustainability with the core business and focusing its investment portfolio on projects that are consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. But the reality is that in most organizations, this kind of leadership is still emerging, according to the PwC survey.

A second critical point for leaders is to balance ESG with growth targets and tight budgets. However, strong leaders could steer the conversation to the long-term financial benefits of shifting from unsustainable business based on fossil energy to sustainable production based on clean energy sources. When leaders focus and connect ESG goals with their business strategy, they can take advantage of the huge opportunities offered by the ESG transformation for value creation.

4.Zero: Digitalization meets decarbonization

Very often, ESG transformation comes together with digital transformation. Technology, through enterprise resource planning software, can help track, report, and reduce carbon impacts. The consequences of climate change are already happening worldwide. And according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even if all parties involved adhered to the measures agreed at the climate conference of Glasgow in 2021, the Earth would warm by 1.8°C by 2100. The EU has committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels and be climate-neutral by 2050. This is forcing many companies to redefine their business models.

Sustainability can have a similarly disruptive effect on companies, and even entire industries such as digitalization. And it holds enormous opportunities for companies that combine digital and sustainability transformation. In the First Movers Coalition, 55 corporations committed in 2021 to using products and services that are emissions-free. And 450 financial companies that hail from 45 countries and are member of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero want to align the management of $130 trillion with the net-zero target.

Fighting a talent war

There is a talent war for sustainability professionals, as firms have been hiring them at a rate not supported by the available supply. “Not all companies are looking to jump on the hiring bandwagon; for some, simply purchasing a suite of ESG data solutions and encouraging analysts to incorporate them into the research process can be a good enough start,” says Tom Strelczak, director of ESG & Responsible Investment at TWS Search Limited. “Rather than spending vast sums of money on band-aid measures, it could be better to invest in the up-and-coming talent that would learn and grow with the business,” the expert recommends. There are plenty of high profile universities offering sustainable investment courses. “If short-term measures are preferred to mid- to long-term measures, the options are to identify people with transferable skillsets,” he explains.

“Over the past few years, ESG requirements have increased dramatically, and it becomes important to understand the difference between the skepticism of ESG as a strategy and the skepticism of ESG hiring practices. The latter is what we are focused on: offering clients an opportunity to hire talent without falling foul of the artificially high compensation requirements in the market. A healthy debate around this topic will encourage companies to come up with solutions that do not add to the spiraling ESG-related wage inflation that can no longer be supported by the business,” Strelczak says.

“Some of the more mainstream asset managers leading the discussion around sustainable investing have hired all the available talent in the market at a price higher than the value they bring to the company itself,” Strelczak points out. “This has, in turn, caused salary inflation associated with ESG skillsets,” he warns. Therefore, companies should reorient their investments toward training junior talent for more sustainable growth plans.

However, the knock-on effect of hiring sustainability-focused candidates from outside of the financial services sector is the subsequent lack of investment focus, which in turn causes conflict with the business itself. “One of the main reasons for candidates to leave their job is that their firm does not take ESG seriously enough,” Strelczak says.

But he also observes a change in the market: The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating and restricting asset managers from falsely labeling funds, and these actions will give greater power to people in ESG roles who assess what companies go into which funds. Repurposing a senior investment director or portfolio manager as “Head of ESG” is a tactic being phased out by firms that acknowledge that greenwashing drives talent away from their companies.“Our firm takes an increasingly progressive approach to new client due diligence, making sure that the companies for whom we run searches are offering an attractive platform for ESG professionals in our network,” Strelczak affirms.

The best response is training

In 2021 the European Commission launched a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which tightens the requirements for non-financial reporting. The CSRD applies to companies that have more than 250 employees and/or a €40 million turnover and/or €20 million in total assets. Approximately 49,000 companies throughout Europe are affected and have to produce sustainability reports from 2025 onwards.

Requirements:

  1. European companies will have to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions, in compliance with the GHG Protocol, including data from the supply chain.Measuring these impacts requires a full environmental footprint of the company (covering 15+ environmental impact categories). EU taxonomy and the CSRD recommend the scientific footprinting method “life cycle assessments.”
  1. The Climate Border Adjustment Mechanism adds a surcharge to imported products with a high environmental footprint.
  2. The Commission lays down rules for companies to respect human rights and the environment.
  3. The coming European Sustainability Reporting Standard seeks to replace the existing patchwork of different voluntary frameworks. The new disclosure includes: business model and strategy, risks, compatibility with the goals of the Paris Agreement, and the interests of stakeholders; concrete goals, reporting on progress and setbacks; due diligence on sustainability with forward-looking and historical information; qualitative and quantitative data, and transparency of processes and metrics.

Companies have to report how sustainability issues affect their performance, position, and development (“outside-in” perspective) as well as their impact on people and the environment (“inside-out”). These “double materiality” reporting obligations are in line with the Regulation on the Disclosure of Information on Sustainable Financial Instruments (“EU taxonomy”).

The best response to increasing duties is training. The European Sustainability Reporting Academy (ESRA) supports companies with courses, coaching, and advice using blended learning and software. “Blended learning combines the best of two worlds, enabling company managers to deal with central aspects of sustainability reporting in a time and cost-saving manner,” says the director of ESRA, Dr. Elmer Lenzen.

Digitalization is another important aspect of sustainability reporting. “What you measure, you can manage,” the director of ESRA assures. With the help of “CSRmanager” software, project partners can process sustainability data, risk management, and reports according to international standards. For suppliers, a redux version is offered for the calculation of the corporate carbon footprint (in accordance with the GHG Protocol).

 

 

 

 



4. Oktober 2022

The 2020s were meant to be a decade of change. It was supposed to be the great social upheaval toward sustainability and climate protection. We are now actually experiencing an upheaval, but not as planned. Wars and crises have consumed the global sense of unity.

Climate change, Covid-19, wars, supply chain problems, hunger, mass migration from the east and south – the world as we know it is changing rapidly. Much optimism has been burnt in the process in recent weeks and months. The idea of shaping the future as a continuation of the present has faltered, and with it, the political and economic architecture of an era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

“We are experiencing a decade of crises and setbacks. The future is ‘VUCA’ – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. And so is globalization,” says the publisher of the Global Goals Yearbook, Dr. Elmer Lenzen, who points out seven trends for the years to come:

  1. Geopoliticization instead of economization
  2. Block trade instead of world trade
  3. Availability instead of efficiency
  4. Democracies vs. autocracies
  5. Multipolar instead of multilateral
  6. China as an additional regulatory power
  7. The populists’ finest hour

Sustainability is more important than ever in the face of global crises. There are global challenges such as climate change, demographic change, post-Covid reconstruction, and many other development goals that require decisive action. The resulting social and economic transformation is epochal. It is about nothing less than the transition to a new age (a collective farewell to Bretton Woods, the Washington Consensus, and the Industrial Age). At the same time, the attainability of the SDGs is receding into the distant future. The 2020s were supposed to be a “decade of action,” a new beginning. Instead, we are living in a decade of crises and setbacks.

What’s next?

Hyper-globalization is dead, says Robert Kuttner. It was killed by the rise of China, the supply chain crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Global trade will continue, but under different rules. Might a new trade regime give more weight to climate goals, labor rights, public health, or the public provision of goods? And where does China fit in? These are the questions Kuttner asks in his contribution.

He argues in reference to Dani Rodrik’s recent Harvard paper, “How to Construct a New Global Order,” of a geopolitical bipolarity between the United States and China, “where they compete on a number of fronts, continue to trade with and invest in each other’s economies, [and] do not challenge the legitimacy of each other’s domestic systems.”

Most nations became more unequal over the past half-century. But the global economy has become more equal, largely because China’s development policies have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. “We may be on the verge of a different form of globalization that could produce gains for social justice, conceived globally as well as nationally, and not just for rampant capitalism,” Kuttner concludes.

There are industries, such as for solar panels, in which China dominates the entire supply chain as well as the supply of finished products. The textiles industry is another example. “[The] supply chain of US textiles providing material for Central American apparel is an example of regional trade arrangements with modestly better social standards. Such regional deals are likely to expand, as the dystopian idea of universal free trade fades.” Kuttner says the US government is also trying to use industrial policies to reshore industries and jobs. At the same time, China’s Belt and Road Initiative could benefit from emerging economies in the Global South.

Corporate sustainability in a world running out of time

As the corporate world is the most economically and environmentally impactful bloc on the planet, “voluntary corporate action is essential for the preservation of the biosphere,” say Adam Carrel, Tanya McKenna, Lauren Jones, and Tara Duane, authors of the article “Enough – A Review of Corporate Sustainability in a World Running out of Time.”

Market-oriented solutions are considered a path to decarbonization. In fact, during COP 26 in Glasgow, investor commitment toward decarbonization and ESG were considered critical to avoid climate and other catastrophes. “Many organizations consider sustainability strategic for their business. But they need an alternative business model that decouples economic growth from environmental decline and social inequality,” say the authors.

Sustainable businesses should be, at a minimum, in a net neutral position in relation to the environmental thresholds. But…

  1. Should these thresholds be based on materiality?
  2. Against what criterion should this assessment be made?
  3. Should corporations be self-assessing their impacts, or should an independent scientific entity play a role?
  4. To what degree of accuracy should assessments of value chain sustainability be made?
  5. Business models and value chains are very dynamic. How should this be accommodated by organizations looking to maintain a permanently sustainable footing?

Maybe we need to reconsider the term “sustainability.” The authors wonder whether we should be talking about impact, or evolving to regeneration, or to something else. “We have to take into account that sustainability cannot be achieved with a focus on one ‘topic’ at the expense of another,” the authors conclude. “We need to wire corporate sustainability into the wider network of scientific agencies, civil society bodies, multilaterals, and institutions to retrieve it from being a silo of half measures and make it part of a unified effort to restore the long-term health of the biosphere.”

 

 


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12. Oktober 2021

Despite some successes in development and environmental politics, progress is far from sufficient to achieve real sustainable development. We know that the 2020s are the make-or-break years. In the new 2021 edition of the Global Goals Yearbook we discuss barriers and solutions.

We are experiencing the all-goes-with-everything crisis: climate change, pandemics, zoonoses, species extinction, shrinking resources, a widening gap between rich and poor, digitalization, disruptions in the economy, the rise of populists and autocrats, among others.

In our current issue of the Global Goals Yearbook, we examine the called-for Decade of Action on three levels:

1. Framing the debate

In this section, we trace how the sustainability debate has evolved from an inequality discourse to an equity discourse. Such models of justice need rules and policy prescriptions. We therefore report on the Green New Deals in Europe and the United States and the introduction of metrics, reporting standards, and the expanded concept of materiality. Common to all aspects is the attempt to translate the broad field of sustainability into numbers. After all, numbers are considered facts, they can be checked, and that is how judgments can be made. In the second part, we look at the question of concrete implementation in operational management processes and internal control systems.

2. Zooming in

The pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of the interconnected world: Building up the economy in the form it was before the pandemic is no option. The economic recovery plans offer a true chance for sustainable transformation in the sense of the UN development goals. We have defined the eight transformation areas that we will explore more actively. All best practices will be assigned to these topics. In this edition we will cover the aspects of sustainable purpose, “leave no one behind,” the circular economy, net-zero strategies, and sustainable cities.

3. Looking around

We will only solve global challenges together. This requires a solidary and cooperative world community. The concept of “rule of law” is therefore regarded as a guiding principle in international politics. It finds its concrete expression in multilateralism. In this Yearbook, we shed light on the origins and development of this concept. Although multilateralism has suffered considerably recently – not only, but also because of ex-President Trump. EU Commissioner Joseph Borell therefore explores the question of how to revive multilateralism in a multipolar world. Finally, Stefan Brunnhuber of the Club of Rome looks at the tensions between democracies and autocracies and their ability to find solutions to Agenda 2030.


References:

Global Goals Yearbook 2021: The Make-or-Break Decade has begun
Publishing house: macondo publishing, Muenster 2021: 152 pages
ISBN-13: 978-3-946284-11-6


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3. September 2020

The 2020s are the make-or-break decade for Sustainability. But Covid-19 questions almost everything. How can we handle increasingly frequent shocks? What can a resilient society and economy that is in line with planetary boundaries look like? These and many other questions are discussed in the new 2020 edition of the Global Goals Yearbook titled „Planet under Pressure“. The Yearbook supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals and is one of the publications in strong international demand.

The Covid-19 pandemic is keeping the world in suspense in 2020 and beyond. By declaring a “lockdown,” countries around the world have temporarily frozen their social, economic, and cultural lives in order to slow the spread of the virus. When such unexpected events occur, experts speak of “asymmetric shocks.” If such crisis-like external influences are to a certain extent unavoidable, then the logical question is: What about our ability to adapt to such shocks? The ideas of vulnerability and resilience have recently gained a high level of prominence in the current economic and political debates. Specifically “resilience” has become a standard term in the OECD, the EU, and the G20 conference formats.

Purely in terms of the number of mentions, the concept of “resilience” is in the process of supplanting that of “sustainability” due to the frequency with which it is being used in (economic) political discourse. The term also runs the risk of becoming a filler word to give new emphasis to old demands.

Living with the crisis: “The new normal“?

However, the pandemic is not the only crisis in recent times: The last decade has been characterized by a whole series of severe shocks. The intervals between them appear to be getting shorter and shorter: the financial crisis in 2008/2009, the refugee crisis in 2015, Brexit (and, as a result, an EU integration crisis), unbelievable losses of biodiversity, increases in extreme weather events due to climate change, to name but a few.

And it will not be the last crisis: In the aftermath of the lockdown, there are already signs of an impending global food crisis that is due to destroy supply chains, and a debt crisis – right up to national bankruptcy – due to the economic consequences of the pandemic.

How does resilience work in practice?

The answers to these developments will be crucial in determining the strategies for the post–Covid-19 world. From a transformation point of view, the moment when there is less stability is the moment when there is a potential for much deeper and stronger change. Everybody feels that the future is much more open than it used to be. How that moment of instability is used depends on who is putting forward what kind of ideas, who has influence, and who gets more to say and to decide. A very vivid panel discussion with Emily Auckland (UKSSD), Julian Hill-Landolt (WBCSD), Maja Goepel (Scientists for Future), and Pietro Bertazzi (CDP) clearly shows the connection between sustainability, crisis, reconstruction, and pitfalls.

An exclusive interview with EU Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, who is responsible for economic affairs as well as the SDGs, highlights the link between society, economy, and the environment. We talk about state opportunities, global interdependencies, and the dilemma of sustainability as a community and generational task.

This brings us to the important point that crises not only change systems, but also the people in the system. If acceleration is the problem, then the solution, argues the well-known sociologist Hartmut Rosa, lies in “resonance.” The quality of a human life cannot be measured simply in terms of resources, options, and moments of happiness, Rosa explains in an interview in this Yearbook. Instead, we must consider our resonance with the world.

The other aspect is health: As habitat and biodiversity losses increase globally, the novel coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics, says John Vidal. In his article, he warns that we are creating conditions for diseases such as Covid-19 to emerge.

 


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1. September 2019

 

What are companies for? The rules for companies have changed. The focus is increasingly on their sustainable, social, and ecological impacts. The strategic orientation toward the so-called corporate purpose is decisive for profitable growth in the future.

This currently results in a large number of questions for businesses: How do you find an inspiring and future-oriented corporate purpose, and how can it be aligned in such a way that it brings profitable growth and social responsibility in concert? The new 2019 edition of the Global Goals Yearbook offers answers to these crucial questions thanks to its consistent orientation toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals and a competent editorial board and author pool.

The driver of development is to a large extent competition for the best minds. But it is not only the human resources departments that are pushing the topic. Experts speak instead of “inclusive capitalism” and urge that all stakeholders be taken along, including boards of management, customers, and even fund managers. Responsible businesses have governance structures that monitor and advise on environmental, social, as well as financial issues. When leaders understand and thrive within the broader social and environmental con- texts in which their businesses operate, it signals to employees, investors, and key stakeholders just how important purpose really is.

What is business for? What role does and should business play in society? To what extent should it perform a public purpose alongside its commercial activities? How should the aspirations of humanity, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals, be reflected in the objectives of business? John Elkington, doyen of the sustainability community, together with Richard Roberts writes: “Being a little more ‘sustainable’ than your peers will do little to insulate a company from external shocks caused by extreme weather or extreme politics. So companies are going to have to step up to become much more active and effective agents of systems change, unless they are content simply to be passengers on a voyage captained by the ghost of Milton Friedman, which appears to be headed toward the mother of all icebergs.”

This realignment is taking place in turbulent times. Planning was yesterday. Today we are constantly exposed to new surprises, and the biggest uncertainty factor is politics. Is an era of instability beginning? Uncertainty is not good. It disturbs our planning. That is a significant problem for the economy, for entire societies, and for each individual. Growing levels of uncertainty mean that our picture of the future is becoming increasingly blurred, which has an impact on economic development. Citizens and businesses are holding back, purchases are being postponed, and investment plans are being cut back.

Climate change will have the greatest impact on those living in poverty, but it also threatens democracy and human rights, according to an UN expert. “Even if current targets are met, tens of millions will be impoverished, leading to wide- spread displacement and hunger,” says the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston. „We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario, where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.”

Global Goals Yearbook 2019
Münster 2019: macondo publishing, 172 pages
ISBN: 978-3-946284-07-9


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21. August 2018

Presenting the Global Goals Yearbook 2018, with a Focus on Partnerships for the Goals

The future of the United Nations is more uncertain now than at any time before. Like his predecessors, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has promised to reform the United Nations. The drivers are two major agreements: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Accord. Both stand for a move away from statal, top-down multilateralism and toward a new form of partnership between the public and private sectors as well as civil society. But how can these new partnerships for the Global Goals look like? This is the main topic of the Global Goals Yearbook 2018, published under the auspices of the macondo foundation.

Our world is truly not sustainable at this time. To make the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a success story, we need an enormous increase in effort. This cannot happen without help from the private sector. But businesses need a reason to contribute as well as attractive partnerships that are based on win-win constellations.

We have no alternative but to rethink the role that public–private partnerships can play in this effort. That is why United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is calling upon UN entities to strengthen and better align their private-sector engagement. In every change there is a new chance.

The Global Goals Yearbook 2018 discusses the many aspects of how private-sector engagement can be improved. Recommendations are, among other things, to revise multilateralism, partnership models, and processes as well as to invest more in trust, a failure culture, as well as metrics and monitoring.

When businesses engage in partnerships for the Goals, this is more than just signing checks. It means inserting the “do good” imperative of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into corporate culture, business cases, innovation cycles, investor relationships, and, of course, the daily management processes and (extra-)financial reporting.

The Yearbook includes arguments from academic and business experts, the World Bank, and the Club of Rome, as well as UN entities, among them UNDP, UNSSC, UNOPS, UN JIU, and UN DESA.

A core question concerns financing partnerships.

Sustainable development requires sustainable financing. UN sources estimate the need for financing the SDGs to be from $4 to 4.5 trillion annually. Current annual investments total about $1.5 trillion. So we are talking about an annual investment gap of $2.5 to $3 trillion. To close this gap, financing from private sources is needed, including from capital markets, institutional investors, and businesses. With private-sector engagement, not only does a new player enter the arena, but also new rules are being applied: “Financing” is a fundamentally different concept than the traditional idea of “funding.” It connects the “return on investment” concept with the SDGs. The question is: How do we combine social benefits with profit?

Good practices.

Corresponding to the idea of learning from role models, the Global Goals Yearbook 2018 includes 39 good practices of corporate participants that showcase different approaches to the implementation of the SDGs.

Global Goals Yearbook 2018
Münster 2018: macondo publishing, 172 pages
ISBN: 978-3-946284-05-5

About the Global Goals Yearbook:

The Global Goals Yearbook is a publication in support of the SDGs and the advancement of corporate sustainability globally. It offers proactive and in-depth information on key sustainability issues and promotes unique and comprehensive knowledge-exchange and learning in the spirit of the SDGs and the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact. The Global Goals Yearbook helps to advance corporate transparency, promotes the sharing of good business practices, and, perhaps most significantly, gives a strong voice to the regional and global stakeholders that are at the heart of the sustainability agenda.



14. November 2017

 

Each decade since the 1960s has been warmer than the previous one. And there is strong evidence that the current decade will reach another all-time high. So what to expect from the UN’s latest Climate Change Conference – COP23?

The conference is all about the „fine print“: The Paris Climate Change Agreement defines the goal: to hold global warming below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. But the questions is how? A particular emphasis will be on Article 6 of the Climate Agreement which allows use of market- based climate change mitigation mechanisms.

The UN Global Compact together with UN Environment and UNFCCC secretariat will convene a High-Level Meeting focussing on how the private sector can contribute to accelerating and enhancing NDC and SDG ambition and implementation leading up to key milestones.

Will we see success in Bonn? Let ́s cross fingers! There are many things that should happen at the Bonn climate talks but probably won’t, warns Marc Hudson in a worth-reading article.

What businesses already do to protect climate you can read in the new edition of the Global Compact International Yearbook. See our articles below!

  • The Global Momentum Must Be Continued
  • New Trends in Financing Climate Change
  • The Fossil Empire Strikes Back
  • Making Science Great Again – SBT-Initiative
  • 5 Steps Toward a Climate Management
  • Special: French Actress Marion Cotillard


1. September 2017

 

We live in times of uncertainty and global (dis)order. „Understanding global mega-trends is crucial. We live in times of multiple, evolving and mutually-reinforcing shifts“, says
UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He adds: „These dynamics, of geopolitical, demographic, climatic, technological, social and economic nature, enhance threats and opportunities on an unprecedented scale.“ Therefore sustainability in troubled times is the key topic of the Global Compact International Yearbook 2017, edited by macondo publishing.

In the opening essay, Elmer Lenzen, publisher of the Global Compact International Yearbook, takes a critical look at the relationship between democracy and globalization. For decades this combination was a formula for success. Now both are experiencing troubled times. UN Global Compact founding director Georg Kell and Princeton professor Larry Diamond, who are well- known figures in this field, explain some of the reasons why in a profound interview. One reason is that today’s world is becoming more fragmented. So how can sustainability work in these times?

It can work if we focus on the needs of the present without compromising the abilities of the future, says Global Compact Action Platform fellow Richard Roberts, and by utilizing the advantages of tomorrow. But doing the right thing in critical times is also a question of attitude. The entrepreneur Richard Branson and the actor Colin Firth both show in their own ways that sustainability means authenticity.

Other issues are

Post-Paris Climate Accord: What ́s next?

The Paris Climate Accord was one of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs of the United Nations in the last years. It stands for the vision of multilateralism and the ability of the global community to set ambitious goals for itself. Therefore, the direction that the new US administration has taken is irritating, mainly because there is no way back – the global momentum must be continued, as CDP head Paul Simpson explains in his introductory review. Many new trends in financing climate change underpin this. The old fossil-fuels industry is losing ground because renewables have become competitive. Companies can substantially benefit from this, as the new Science Based Targets initiative of the Global Compact and others shows.

The Plastic Pledge

Worldwide plastic pollution is overwhelming our planet. Up to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year – threatening precious ecosystems and endangering human health. But it does not have to be this way. A growing number of companies are pledging to reduce their plastic consumption.

The Sustainable Development Goals in Japan

A critical aspect of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to leave no one behind. Cooperation between governments and the private sector that goes beyond geographical borders is imperative for achieving this goal. The global mission to propel the world a step closer to achieving the SDGs is one that intermittently intertwines business and individuals from various walks of life. However, it seems Japan and her people are too shy to transmit such efforts to the world. As a leader in technological innovation – a critical driving force in achieving the SDGs – Japan has great potential to also be a leader in bringing the world together to move forward with this collective goal. Introducing pieces by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University, and a joint report by IGES and GCNJ, this yearbook is the first attempt to offer an overview of the key players within Japan and the cross-country collaboration necessary for the country to grow into this role.

Corresponding to the idea of mutual learning, the Global Compact International Yearbook includes 37 good practices of corporate participants that showcase different approaches to the implementation of the Ten Principles of the Global Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).