COLLABORATION -
Increasing access to clean, safe and sustainable sanitation to 10 million people by 2022 is a top priority for personal care corporation Kimberly-Clark’s Sustainability 2022 goals, and on November 19, World Toilet Day, the company renewed its commitment to its Toilets Change Lives program, a multi-national commercial program that leverages the power of its well-known brands to educate and engage consumers and help solve the global sanitation crisis.
WASTE NOT -
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy have recognized 15 U.S. businesses and organizations pledging concrete steps to reduce food loss and waste in their operations 50 percent by 2030, as recommended by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
NEW METRICS -
The New Economy has begun. One year into a world where global leaders have agreed to act on 17 concrete Sustainable Development Goals, and where the full force of law is now behind the international agreement on climate change, we are speeding toward a bright future for business that creates value for people, the planet, and the economy.
NEW METRICS -
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) released new global sustainability reporting standards, which it says will enhance corporate transparency worldwide. The standards give companies a common language for disclosing non-financial information, and will help firms “make better decisions” and contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or Global Goals).
COLLABORATION -
Asia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) is reinforcing its commitment towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through participation in “The Pari Island Project,” a new multiparty collaboration aimed at improving the availability and sustainability of clean water in Indonesia.
LEADERSHIP -
The host of food and drink company members of the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Food and Drink Federation (FDF) have developed a series of new sustainability commitments. The newly-released “Ambition 2025” document builds on the group’s previous “Five-Fold Environmental Ambition” and includes goals related to climate change, food waste, packaging, water, transport, supply chains and natural capital, as well as case studies highlighting some of their members’ best practices.
PRESS RELEASE -
SAN FRANCISCO, October 7, 2016 – Sustainable Brands® recently announced the full program for New Metrics’16, scheduled for November 14-16 in Boston, MA. Drawing together over 400 global business leaders, the conference will focus on the emerging methods for identifying, measuring, and quantifying new forms of business risk and value, as well as include strategies for communicating the impact of that value to stakeholders.
NEW METRICS -
One year after the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or Global Goals), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) proudly announced that nearly a third of its members are communicating on the SDGs, just as United Nations (UN) officials called for more integration of the Goals into corporate sustainability reporting at an annual meeting in Geneva.
PRESS RELEASE -
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) announced a new five-year commitment to help advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to help improve the health and well-being of men, women and children around the world. Johnson & Johnson is dedicating its expertise and innovations to ignite global partnerships and catalyze efforts through a variety of new implementation plans, targets and metrics. The announcement comes along with an expanded commitment by Johnson & Johnson to further strengthen the resilience of refugee and displaced children and their families in Syria and its neighboring countries where the need is greatest.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
"What's your favorite sustainable development goal?" joked John Elkington, the writer, thinker and serial entrepreneur who coined the triple bottom line concept in 1997, who moderated a Tuesday panel on aligning the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with strategy, goal-setting and innovation at SB’16 Copenhagen.
COLLABORATION -
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) has announced a new digital ‘Global Solutions Platform’ to engage business students to support the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or Global Goals). The platform consists of two parallel projects through which business students will analyze and evaluate the quality of company activities as they relate to responsible and sustainable business operations, and highlight the most notable achievements of companies in each major industry.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
On 21 September, Alliance 8.7 was launched during the UN General Assembly to end forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour. The aim is to galvanize political support and strengthen multi-stakeholder action on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.7.
Taco Terheijden, Director of Cocoa Sustainability at Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate, reflects on the importance of SDG 8.7 and how the new Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System within the Cargill Cocoa Promise will strengthen its efforts to tackle child labour and forced labour in the cocoa supply chain.
LEADERSHIP -
A new forecast by DNV GL concludes that while progress will be made towards many of the United Nations’ (UN’s) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or Global Goals), there is a very real risk that they will not be met by 2030. The report predicts that action will not be fast nor fair enough, and will come at an unacceptable environmental cost — but reminds us that there is still time to reset the course of our “Spaceship Earth.”
COLLABORATION -
Today, 37 leading agri-business companies have today launched the Global Agri-Business Alliance (GAA) in Singapore. Their aim is to collectively tackle the major environmental and social challenges facing agricultural supply chains and rural communities across the world.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Declaring intent is oh-so-easy. CEOs and other business leaders do it all the time. But delivering against declared pledges can be a very different matter. In recent years, for example, thousands of companies have signed up to various international charters and business-to-business platforms pursuing sustainable development — and rolled up at the growing number of events celebrating incremental progress. Then, last year, somebody sat on the fast-forward button.
PRESS RELEASE -
SustainRWorld Day, which launches September 8th at the United Nations, is an initiative intended to rally the private sector to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by inspiring a movement to make every day SustainRWorld Day and celebrate our measurable progress each year.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
A new report from relief and development charity Tearfund and the Institute of Development Studies suggests that businesses and governments could help save lives and create jobs by adopting a circular economy approach to waste management.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
With about one-fifth of the world’s population, China has the ability to significantly contribute to the success of the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The country made impressive strides in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in poverty alleviation, and is well-positioned to build on that progress in the post-2015 development agenda despite the challenges it will undoubtedly face.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
Like few times in our history, we are navigating a moment of profound cultural, political and economic transformation.
On one hand, we’ve seen nearly every nation on the planet come together behind new Sustainable Development Goals and an historic Climate Accord that offers a bold and inspiring vision for the promise and possibilities of business and society.