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?
5. Discussion
5.1. Positioning of Existing Tools/Frameworks within the Strategic Management Process
The scoping review process uncovered three broad types of SDG tools/frameworks that are available to organizations: mapping tools, reporting tools and aligning tools. These categories were then mapped onto the strategic management process, as depicted in Figure 1, to identify where each category fits within the process. As explained in Section 2.3, the main phases in a generalized model of strategic management involve: Ideation, Development and Implementation. Identifying which phase the existing tools relate to could give us some indication of whether or not the available tools/frameworks would enable strategic actions in the organizations who use them.
5.1.1. Mapping Tools
Mapping tools can be placed in the Implementation phase of the strategic management process. These tools are focused primarily on identifying the SDGs which align with existing programs and value chains. Mapping tools/frameworks do not explicitly interact with the strategic planning that precedes and underpins the programs/value chains. They neither actively address the defining of new objectives according to the SDGs, nor do they provide an explicit mechanism for developing new programs and actions that implement the SDGs. Mapping tools simply aim to identify the subsequent value that is created by pre-defined programs. This is reasonably comparable to the 'execute' and 'monitor' components of the Implementation phase (see Figure 1), as the aim is to identify the alignment of activities during and after implementation.
5.1.2. Reporting Tools
Tools/frameworks related to SDG reporting can also be placed within the 'monitor' component of the 'Implementation' phase of the strategic management process. Both SDG-specific and adapted tools of this nature explicitly reference the measurement of end-result organizational operation, which is analogous with end-stage monitoring. As discussed earlier, some adapted reporting frameworks focus on measuring the end-result of an organizations value creation, which may have an association with earlier phases of the strategic management process. However, as the objective of these particular frameworks is the express, end-process measurement of this value process, it shall be considered to be primarily a 'monitoring' activity.
5.1.3. Aligning Tools
The diverse collection of aligning tools/frameworks have a wide scope, and therefore, they engage with different phases of the strategic management process. More specifically, tools of this nature seek to redefine organizational practice, a modification which requires a greater level of strategizing and therefore engagement with a greater number of phases in the strategic management process. It should be noted that this type of SDG tool/framework is the most fragmented of those reviewed (see the Supplementary Materials), and as such, placement within the strategic management cannot be generalized to any specific method of this nature.
Aligning tools/frameworks are firstly related to the 'define' component of the Ideation phase, where strategic objectives are framed. Aligning tools can help with aligning an organization's ideals and socio-economic purpose, in relation to the SDGs. Aligning tools are also related to the 'execute' component of the Implementation phase. This form of tool/framework effectively seeks to imbed industrial systems with the sustainability principles that are outlined in the 'define' component previously discussed. Systems such as this are typically complex, requiring internal and external factors to cooperate, in order to accomplish the required organizational operation. These characteristics share symmetry with the enterprise activity and the customer/client interface of the 'execute' component of the strategy process.
5.2. Can Existing SDG Tools and Frameworks Enable Strategic Actions?
As discussed above, the existing tools that are reviewed in this study primarily focus on two aspects: mapping and reporting. Only a small number of tools attempt to assist organizations with redefining their business models, in alignment with the SDGs. Positioning existing tools within the three phases of the strategic management process (Ideation, Development, Implementation) indicates that most tools are related to the last phase of the process, i.e., the Implementation phase. Some aligning tools relate to the Ideation phase, but there seems to be a lack of tools and frameworks that relate to the Development phase of strategic management, where strategies are devised, evaluated, and selected for action. This means that organizations lack sufficient support in shaping strategic actions towards the SDGs. The tendency within the majority of available tools/frameworks to address the later-stages of the strategy process means that organizations engage with the SDGs only after core organizational values and visions have been defined, objectives have been set, strategic decisions have been developed and programs have even been implemented. Such late engagement with the SDGs in the strategic management process is not likely to enable meaningful actions for delivering substantial impact on the SDGs, let alone the transformative change that is required.
Mapping and reporting are useful activities as first steps in engaging with the SDGs. What needs to follow is a set of tools and frameworks that can help organizations to embed the SDGs throughout their strategic management process. At its heart, the strategic management process charts the future direction of an organization. It focuses on the decision making process, developing and executing strategies which define how and why an organization operates. If SDG action is to occur in organizations, tools/frameworks are needed which integrate the goals throughout the entire process so that the trajectory of the organization is guided - or at least informed - by the SDGs. The SDG agenda requires wide-ranging transformative action. organizations can only achieve this if they have similarly wide-ranging tools/frameworks that support this transformation.
5.3. A Research Agenda for New SDG Tools
The prospect of creating new SDG tools that integrate with the entire strategic management process is challenging. As previously discussed, organizational strategy is a heavily contested field that has evolved over many decades. The swift production of related tools/frameworks may be difficult, due to this complex nature. At the same time, the SDGs are a time-bounded agenda with their expiration in 2030. It should be noted that this 2030 boundary is not an appropriate goal for developing appropriate SDG frameworks/tools; rather, it is the time limit for when SDGs should be achieved by. organizations will require tools/frameworks that fully engage with the strategic management process well before the agenda expires, in order to take the appropriate action to achieve the goals. To expedite the development of such needed tools, it would be useful to co-opt existing knowledge/expertise from fields that already have a natural synergy with organizational strategy and sustainable development. Examples of this include the activity already occurring within the 'industrial ecology' and 'sustainable business model' fields, as discussed previously. The tools/frameworks that have originated from these fields to date provide a valuable resource for organizational SDG action. In moving forward, however, they need to engage with the entire strategic management process to create the transformative action that is required.
Another consideration in producing the appropriate organsiational SDG tools/frameworks in a speedy manner is co-development with businesses and governments. The 'MSDG' framework is an example of this whereby SDG considerations were built into frameworks already used by organizations, lessening the need for extensive testing and adaptation by the businesses in practice. If academia and industry could collaborate using academic fields that are already predisposed to SDG action, tools/frameworks which embed the SDGs throughout the strategic management process could be produced in time for organizations to meaningfully contribute to the achievement of the goals.