Private Sector Urged to Integrate SDGs into Business Strategy

United Nations has today urged corporates to use their business chain to push for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals to accelerate their attainment.

Speaking in Nairobi the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary General Dr Mukhisa Kituyi noted that The SDGs present an opportunity for business-led solutions and technologies to be developed and implemented to address the world’s biggest sustainable development challenges.

“It is not possible to have a strong, functioning business in a world of increasing inequality, poverty and climate change. Business has the unique opportunity to embrace the SDG agenda and recognize it as a driver of business strategies, innovation and investment decisions,” he said.

Dr. Kituyi was speaking during an SDG forum organized by Safaricom where the company launched its own SDG integration campaign.

According to the Global Climate Change Report of 2015, SDG’s offer the greatest economic opportunity of a lifetime with an estimated investment of $2-3 trillion a year.

Read: Climate Change a Threat to the African Economy

It further states that businesses that will, for instance, actively engage in the goal on climate action will enjoy at least 18 percent higher returns on investment.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said the company had commenced integration of the SDG’s into its business strategy adding that this would provide a platform for the company to pursue opportunity and innovation and new business opportunities.

“We don’t live or operate in isolation. If we contribute to the depletion of our planet, our businesses will suffer the consequences in equal measure,” he said adding that the move to adapt the SDG’s will in the long run stimulate growth and generate value for the company, society and economy.

“Let us go beyond financing to driving actual sustainable economic growth,” he added.

Last year, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called on the private sector to drive the success of the SDG’s which will provide an opportunity to improve the environment for doing business and building markets.

The SDGs, also referred to as The Global Goals, are a set of 17 goals that are expected to set the world’s development agenda. The 17 goals are augmented with 169 underlying targets, seeking to ensure the measurability of progress.

The SDGs build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aim to go further to end all forms of poverty. The new Goals call for action by all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.