Universities, Sustainability and Businesses …
611
Another kind of Business engagement is the case of the “GOALKEEPERS,”
24 an
initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that articulates “leaders who take
a stand on the issues they care about and innovate in their communities to achieve the
Global Goals.” This Foundation focus on poverty and deal with education, family
planning, HIV, and agriculture, particularly in Africa. “GOALKEEPERS” priority
is the Human Capital, considered as important as the Physical Capital.
As seen, there is a large common frontier between Universities and Businesses in
the practical arena of innovation. The remaining question is about how much progress
has been achieved by companies in this new world of Sustainability.
In the course of the third year since SDGs were launched in September 2015, a
qualitative and quantitative study by KPMG
25 (2018), based on world’s top 250 companies by revenue across 15 industry sectors, revealed that 40% of those companies
already reference the SDGs in their Corporate Reports. The study proposed quality
criteria grouped in 3 themes: Understanding, Prioritization, and Measurement.
8.1 Understanding
This is a key area for improvement, since only 6% of companies satisfied all criteria
for understanding SDGs. Two thirds (68%) scored low scores. Major deficiencies
are absence of business cases, lack of SDGs discussions in leadership messages,
and unbalanced assessments of SDGs impacts, focusing on the positive but not the
negative impacts. It was noted that the absence of the SDGs could lead to missing
opportunities on the very large potential market of over US$12 Trillion for SDGrelated products and services.
8.2 Prioritization
Although 84% of companies identified the most relevant SDGs to their business,
only 54% have disclosed the process used to prioritize them. With respect to the 169
targets set by United Nations in relation to the 17 SDGs, a few 20% have reported
on any of them.
Prioritization, however, scored higher than the other two areas, indicating that it is
maturing at a faster pace. Identifying specific SDGs targets relevant to the business
constitutes the most urgent area for improvement for 80% of the companies studied.
24 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
25 KPMG—HOW TO REPORT ON THE SDGs.
611
Another kind of Business engagement is the case of the “GOALKEEPERS,”
24 an
initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that articulates “leaders who take
a stand on the issues they care about and innovate in their communities to achieve the
Global Goals.” This Foundation focus on poverty and deal with education, family
planning, HIV, and agriculture, particularly in Africa. “GOALKEEPERS” priority
is the Human Capital, considered as important as the Physical Capital.
As seen, there is a large common frontier between Universities and Businesses in
the practical arena of innovation. The remaining question is about how much progress
has been achieved by companies in this new world of Sustainability.
In the course of the third year since SDGs were launched in September 2015, a
qualitative and quantitative study by KPMG
25 (2018), based on world’s top 250 companies by revenue across 15 industry sectors, revealed that 40% of those companies
already reference the SDGs in their Corporate Reports. The study proposed quality
criteria grouped in 3 themes: Understanding, Prioritization, and Measurement.
8.1 Understanding
This is a key area for improvement, since only 6% of companies satisfied all criteria
for understanding SDGs. Two thirds (68%) scored low scores. Major deficiencies
are absence of business cases, lack of SDGs discussions in leadership messages,
and unbalanced assessments of SDGs impacts, focusing on the positive but not the
negative impacts. It was noted that the absence of the SDGs could lead to missing
opportunities on the very large potential market of over US$12 Trillion for SDGrelated products and services.
8.2 Prioritization
Although 84% of companies identified the most relevant SDGs to their business,
only 54% have disclosed the process used to prioritize them. With respect to the 169
targets set by United Nations in relation to the 17 SDGs, a few 20% have reported
on any of them.
Prioritization, however, scored higher than the other two areas, indicating that it is
maturing at a faster pace. Identifying specific SDGs targets relevant to the business
constitutes the most urgent area for improvement for 80% of the companies studied.
24 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
25 KPMG—HOW TO REPORT ON THE SDGs.