From awareness to action on the Global Goals

After just one year, many global businesses are well aware of the Sustainable Development Goals. The UN Global Compact has now launched four ground-breaking engagement platforms for turning awareness into action together with longstanding partners.

For the Global Goals to be realized, they must first be known. Looking back on the last 12 months, we have succeeded in taking this first crucial step towards a better world in 2030: we have created significant global awareness about the SDGs particularly among large, multinational businesses. A recent study conducted by Accenture and the UN Global Compact concluded that the SDGs rank highly on CEOs agendas. 87 percent of global CEOs state that the goals will significantly impact their strategies and priorities.

Within just one year, the SDGs have become a guiding light for corporations as well as nations across the world. This impressive reaction to the Global Goals underline their potential for catalyzing a strong global movement that can turn some of humankinds biggest challenges into new opportunities.

A growing movement

This conclusion is not based on one single survey, but on the growing commitment to sustainable development among business leaders expressed at conferences, in reports, public statements and most importantly through new business activities.

We have made it our mission at the UN Global Compact to translate the SDGs into responsible and innovative business practices around the world, and we have made huge strides during this first year. Through our Making Global Goals Local Business campaign, we have already reached thousands of companies starting by simply raising awareness and understanding of the SDGs.

To come so far in a single year with a message as complex as the one behind the 17 SDGs is quite an achievement, and we believe it is worth celebrating. It has taken the effort of many leaders from the public and private sectors, as well as from civil society. This enormous and collective effort is testament to a true and growing global movement towards creating the world we all want.

All talk and no action?

So, if the first year was one of awareness, how should the second year be remembered? With the range of initiatives we have launched, we believe the answer is clear.

Last week, the UN Global Compact took the next step in our multi-year journey towards realizing the SDGs. At the UN Headquarters in New York we hosted hundreds of international companies and civil society organizations under the banner: Leading the Way in the SDG Era - Connecting Global Business.

As a powerful step from awareness to action, we launched four new platforms to accelerate the achievement of the goals. The platforms focus on four perspectives to activating the SDGs in business worldwide: Developing new solutions, new financing, new reporting, and new innovation.

New solutions: In partnership with the Scandinavian Houses of Innovation, Monday Morning and Sustainia, we have decided to build what we anticipate will be the worlds biggest platform for sustainable solutions to the SDGs The Global Solutions Platform. As a comprehensive mapping of solid and scalable sustainable solutions, the platform will be informed by the UN Global Compacts global network of companies, 80 country networks and more than 600 business schools and 2.5 million students enrolled in the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME).

New financing: Engaging the financial community in the SDG agenda is crucial. Therefore, we have partnered up with the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and UNEP-FI to build on our previous work and create a platform on Catalyzing Financial Innovation. Here we will identify innovative financial products that have the potential to redirect towards critical infrastructure and sustainable solutions.

New reporting: Following up and measuring the implementation of the SDGs on the corporate level takes a new reporting practice accepted and used widely. That is the mission behind the partnership with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The new joint initiative, SDG Leadership through Reporting, will promote and support reporting on the UN Global Compacts Ten Principles, with a special focus on making the reporting useful and relevant for small- and medium-sized companies.

New innovation: Last but not least we need to identify the innovative change makers. That will happen with Project Breakthrough in partnership with Volans. The idea is to connect companies with exponential thinkers and innovators advancing the understanding of how disruptive technologies can be developed and form new business models.

The SDG value chain

These four partnerships and platforms form a value chain in the SDG process, involving all the relevant links in the journey from ambition to action. The intention is to coordinate their work closely to make the chain as strong as possible. We invite businesses, civil society, sustainability organizations and UN partners to join the fellowship of the SDGs and help accelerate the fulfilment of our Global Goals.

At the event last week, business leaders displayed their genuine and enthusiastic commitment to advancing SDG solutions. A message repeated by multiple voices was that most of the innovative solutions we need to build a sustainable future are already out there one visionary CEO put the figure at 80%. What we need now is the determination and ingenuity to bring the solutions to life. To help foster this change of mindset, the UN Global Compact is connecting businesses globally to inspire and learn from each other.

For the past year, we have built awareness and commitment to the SDGs. During the next year, we must add a clear focus on turning awareness into concrete action.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”). The SDGs represent an historic agreement a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here .