The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) bring the global community together in a bid to end poverty and hunger, fight climate change, and achieve sustainable economic growth. How can businesses play their part in this universal effort, and what’s in it for them?
USCIB Vice President for Labor Affairs, Corporate Responsibility and Governance Ariel Meyerstein was quoted in an article by Eco-Business about how the private sector is participating in the global development agenda.
One major initiative is Business for 2030, launched last September by the New York-based United States Council for International Business (USCIB). The programme showcases efforts by companies worldwide to contribute to the SDGs, and aims to foster partnerships between the public and private sectors to meet the goals.
Ariel Meyerstein, USCIB’s vice-president of labour affairs, corporate responsibility and governance, recalls that in 2014, the organisation recognised that the SDGs offered an unprecedented space for the private sector to participate in the global development agenda.
“This meant that businesses needed to quickly get up to speed on this vast, ambitious, and dizzying new framework,” he says. “Business for 2030 provides a public resource that helps translate existing and ongoing corporate activities into the new SDG language.”
This collection of concrete examples not only offers other businesses case studies on how to get involved, but also allows governments to identify good corporate initiatives in their own countries, which they can then collaborate with, explains Meyerstein.
The site today hosts more than 140 initiatives from 35 firms which are implemented across 150 countries.
