Implementing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
In 2015, leaders from 193 UN member countries came together and announced an ambitious set of global goals to transform our world. Known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), these 17 goals are a call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and improve everyone's lives and prospects as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Today, progress is being made in many places, but action to meet the SDGs is not advancing at the speed or scale required. This section evaluates some strategic tools available to support organizations engaging with the SDGs.
How can goal conflict within the SDGs work against one another? What are the opportunities to achieve the SDGs by 2030 within planetary boundaries?
Abstract
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a bold aspiration for a sustainable, prosperous and equitable future. There is universal agreement that the goals cannot be achieved by 2030 on a business-as-usual trajectory, and that we need new agents of change, such as business, government and civil society. An array of tools and frameworks have recently been developed to support organizations in engaging with the SDGs. However, it is not understood if these tools/frameworks can enable transformative actions. This study used a scoping methodology to review the tools available to organizations for SDG action. These tools were then analyzed against a generic model of the 'strategic management' process, in order to determine their usefulness in impacting organizational strategy. It was found that most of the tools are only applicable to 'mapping' and 'reporting' activities, which occur after strategies have been developed and even implemented. A small number of tools were found to align with the early stages of strategic management, that is, 'problem definition' and 'goal setting'. No tools were identified which substantially engaged with actual strategy development, the stage which can shape transformative change. This gap indicates how future research could address organizational strategy, to foster as-of-yet unexplored SDG action.
Source: Jarrod Grainger-Brown and Shirin Malekpour, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/5/1381/pdf
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