Post by account_disabled on Mar 7, 2024 4:05:03 GMT
To attract and retain great employees, loyal customers, and investors increasingly concerned about corporate responsibility. Selective… can be counterproductive the second common pattern is one in which only some of the 17 sustainable development goals are taken up. Kendall explains that the selective approach is similar to the notion of creating shared value in that it Country Email List focuses on areas where the company's current business model already intersects with a social need. A pharmaceutical company, for example, may choose to focus on sdg 3 – health and well-being , by making medicines that help people heal from illnesses, and even live more productive lives. Such efforts can genuinely contribute to sdg 3, but only if medicines are affordable and accessible to those who need them most. But is that enough? What happens if the manufacturing of the medicines uses large amounts of fresh water and the production takes place in a water-scarce area? For local communities in that region, the company may be undermining sdg 6: clean water and sanitation . Of course, this is conveniently left out of the report in which the company in question, rather than informing, gloats about those things of which it can be proud. Selective social responsibility reports, rather than informing, allow the company to gloat over those things it can be proud of and leave out its areas of opportunity.
And what if that same company can only profitably bring its drugs to market by relying on low-cost suppliers that don't pay their workers a living wage? In that case, the company's success may even be slowing progress toward sdg 1: no poverty . Of course, practically no company can positively promote the 17 sdgs at the same time. Especially those that do business as usual. However, each of them exists as part of a complex value network that touches multiple interconnected systems: markets, communities, ecosystems... Beginning to recognize yourself as part of that network, instead of considering yourself a whole, is key to sustainable development. And also for better communication. When companies begin to understand themselves as part of a whole, they also understand that in this sea of complexity, linear notions of cause and effect begin to evaporate, and without careful consideration, any action in one area can lead to undesirable consequences in others.
Places. A selective approach to the sdgs can be counterproductive: even the most well-intentioned company could be inadvertently aggravating one problem it is trying to solve while another. Are such trade-offs acceptable? Possibly, but how can we be sure if we do nothing to identify and measure them? Holistic: measure and mitigate trade-offs that brings us to the third pattern: taking a holistic approach, one that considers all of a company's sdg impacts, both positive and negative, across the entire value chain. Difficult? Yes, but not impossible. No business decision is impact-free; but if we adopt a systems approach, by observing all the interactions between the company, its suppliers, customers, other socioeconomic actors and the environment, it is possible to identify unforeseen problems. Negative impacts throughout the company's value chain can be anticipated and avoided, or at least mitigated. A holistic approach to managing extra-financial performance is crucial because positive and negative impacts almost never cancel each other out. Greenhouse gas emissions are an exception: one ton of co2 emitted in johannesburg can be 'neutralized' by one ton of co2 removed from the atmosphere in tokyo . However, other types of impacts (product waste, water stress, human rights violations) generally cannot be eliminated, over time or location. Incremental improvements in one area, and the expense of exacerbating problems elsewhere, do not contribute significantly to meeting the sdgs.