SDGs: Great Opportunity for Small Businesses

Would you like to earn a piece of a $12 trillion a year opportunity in the course of the next 12 years?

Of course, you would. Who wouldn’t?

That’s the expected windfall of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the United Nations.

The SDGs, adopted by the United Nations in the fall of 2015, are the product of extensive multi-stakeholder negotiations involving a wide range of sectors, including business. They set the framework of 17 goals to tackle the world’s most important social, health, economic and environmental challenges in the lead-up to 2030, the UN’s deadline for implementation.

The goals have the potential to unleash innovation, economic growth and development at an unprecedented scale and could be worth at least $12 trillion a year in market opportunities and generate up to 380 million new jobs by 2030. The SDGs hold great possibilities for all businesses.

For cutting-edge businesses with savvy leaders that strategically and tactically comprehend the advantages of dynamic thought leadership, this pro-civilization orientation offers a wide range of outreach opportunities. Small local businesses, restaurants and hospitality, retailers, hospitals and healthcare, manufacturers and others should get on board soon.

Opportunities include: new markets, enhanced reputation, staying ahead of the curve, and obtaining a license to operate in various countries.

Globally and locally, the SDGs will not be realized without large and small businesses. The 17 SDGs and the 169 time-bound targets supporting the principles, represent a comprehensive and interconnected framework. It has resounding universal relevance for all stakeholders and nations. Its ambitions effectively transform every country and situation into a developing country, giving everyone and every entity the chance to build business from the ground up.

Business as usual will not achieve the SDGs, nor will innovation by a few pioneers. A new business plan with as much buy-in as possible is required for success. This is beyond the reach of any one company. Realizing the goals means collaboration among a critical mass of companies at the local, industry, national and global levels.

While the broad concept of sustainability and environmental friendliness isn’t new, the 17 SDGs are so there isn’t a large body of best practices but rather there are many emerging practices. As a result you may understand how your company can protect the environment in your local park but you still can’t get your arms around contributing to such goals as poverty eradication – Goal 1.

Fortunately, the SDGs provide an opportunity for you to think outside of the box. For example, if you’re selling toilet cleaners, paper or supplies, your consumers have toilets but many people around the world don’t. The World Health Organization and UNICEF report that 1 in 3 people worldwide doesn’t have proper toilets. That’s about 2.4 billion people or roughly one-third of the world’s population.

Maybe you can do something about that – Goal 6 Clean Water and Sanitation. Not alone, but in partnership with other businesses in your town or industry. That way you will also be fulfilling Goal 17 Partnerships for the Goals.

Stated differently, the broad scope of sustainable development isn’t only about hugging trees. Yes, it is about improving the planet’s ecology and living conditions for future generations. But it is also about boosting your company’s outreach because there is a demanding consumer.

One of today’s largest consumer segments – your customer – is unabashedly pro-sustainability. The millennials. This vocal group of 14-35 years olds is taking active and inactive actions to achieve the SDGs. Millennials feel a personal connection to their ideals and preferred brands, and their wallets reinforce their preferences. If you support sustainability, they and their friends will become your loyal customers.

“If you look at the millennials, they are the first generation now who are willing consciously to spend more for better quality, for sustainability, for traceability. I think there is a change,” observed Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman of Nestlé. “I think that if you’re looking at the success stories in the food industry lately you will see that those successes are normally in products which have a relatively high price and it’s basically a [success] coming from the new generation. So I would say from this respect there is a change.”

But beware of the opposite. If you and your trading partners reject building the SDG principles into your business plans, then millennials and other consumers won’t pay attention to your goods and services.

Millennials use numerous media outlets, such as Twitter, and they have no reservations about revealing to the world that one or another company is damaging rain forests or refusing to live up to the 17 SDGs. Their unambiguous message will be “don’t buy from XYZ Inc.”

Here are some steps that you, an entrepreneur and business owner, can incorporate into your business activities:

Individual-level

Stay informed about the SDGs and make them your business. Keep up with the sustainable development agenda to ensure that your company is well placed to capitalize on opportunities and pre-empt disruptive risks.

Spread the word

Engage your network of peers, owners of other small businesses in your town, your trading partners, on this agenda to create a tipping point for business engagement.

Company-level

Develop a thorough understanding of how your company’s local and global business activities translate into economic, environmental and social impacts in the context of the SDGs.

Set goals

Plot a course towards enhancing positive and mitigating negative SDG impacts.

Develop business solutions

Apply an SDG lens at the strategic level to harness your organization’s potential to engineer business solutions that make your company more successful and sustainable.

Communicate – Reach out

Regular and transparent communication about your SDG performance and progress is essential. Tell your community, newspapers, radio, TV, elected officials, businesses, vendors and consumers about your plans and achievements.

Sector-level networking

Collaborate with peers, competitors, trading partners, business clubs, and other stakeholders to frame the SDGs in the context of your industry sector. Building a community of likeminded companies builds a strong sustainable community.

Roadmaps

Set a collective vision for your industry and collaborate on initiatives to realize sector transformation. Issue calls to action

Call for all companies in the sector to align, collaborate and report on their progress.

Policy-level Advocate

Openly advocate for the introduction of key policy and finance enablers that will help to achieve a tipping point.

Engage with the global goals, the SDGs, and embrace them as part of your identity and strategic vision. With such a hot issue, it’s not smart to be a sustainability follower, waiting for others to show the way, it’s better to be a thought leader and take advantage of the opportunities.

Join the conversation in cyberspace about sustainability and boosting your business. If you have examples of how you used social media to boost outreach about sustainability, let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.

Scroll through my blog to read about more ways to boost your outreach.

I’d also like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership website:

http://thoughtleadership.yolasite.com/              

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