Sustainability is the business, and it has to be your starting point for every business you do. If you start your goals and strategies from sustainability, it will be a natural part of the way that you innovate.
-Annika Ramsköld, VP Sustainability Vattenfall
Annika Ramsköld suggests that you should keep it at the heart of your business. Other wise it is never going to work. Every company working on sustainability, will need SDGs with prioritizing its stakeholders, in order to be result oriented and tracing the process.
A way for companies and organizations to approach the SDGs is to use the SDG Compass — a guide which was developed in 2015 by GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), the UN Global Compact and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
It provides companies with five steps to maximize their contribution to the SDGs.
- Understand the SDGs
Explore what the SDGs are, how they came about, how companies can use them to their benefit, and how they build on existing business responsibilities by covering the following areas.
2. Define Priorities & Emergencies
Define your priorities according to your business plan. What does your business need the most at the moment? Does it need to be digitalized or do you need to reduce your carbon footprint first? Defining where your company’s priorities are will help you to focus your efforts.
3. Set Your Goals
Make sure that your goals are well-defined and measurable. You can set your goals by defining the problem or current issue and how to change, improve. Always set your deadlines to your goals. Every SDG has its Key Performance Indicators. KPIs helps us to understand the performance and health of our business so that we can make critical adjustments in our execution to achieve our strategic goals. Knowing and measuring the right KPIs will help you achieve results faster.
4. Integrate
When you set your Goals, you now have you KPIs. Integrating sustainability has the potential to transform all aspects of your company’s core business, including its product and service offering, customer segments, supply chain management, choice and use of raw materials, transport and distribution networks and product end-of-life.
5. Reporting & Communication
It’s important to report and communicate on your progress against the SDGs continuously in order to understand and meet the needs of your stakeholders
You can reach the whole compass here : https://sdgcompass.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/019104_SDG_Compass_Guide_2015.pdf
