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?
6. Conclusions
SDG action is difficult; significant change is required within a short time period. The sheer size and scale of the goals is understandably daunting for organizations who require guidance to achieve the ambitions of the SDGs. The scoping review presented in this study shows that some tools are available to organizations for SDG action, but that there is a significant absence of tools and frameworks for strategic - and therefore transformational - change. The most widely available techniques are primarily focussed on mapping and reporting against the SDGs; beneficial methods that are not radical enough to possibly achieve the goals without further action. More substantial tools/frameworks should focus on re-defining organizational core business, and they are promisingly ambitious, but they are currently unfulfilled with entire strategic elements being left unaddressed.
The above findings need to be considered in the context of the limitations of the study. Developing SDG tools and frameworks is a fast-growing field, and new tools emerge on a frequent basis. While the study tried to cover a comprehensive list of tools that have been developed so far (that is, up until 2019), it is possible that some tools were missed in the review process. Moreover, the review only covered the literature (both academic and gray) in English. There are also limits with regard to the strategic management model against which we compared the review results. The model that we used is a generic model, and although it is underpinned by some of the foundational literature on strategic management, it may not include every single element of the strategy process in organizations.
There is clear opportunity for future research to produce approaches, tools, and frameworks that explicitly deal with strategy development for organizational SDG action. The harnessing of the strategy process offers a potential vehicle for transformative change, not only towards the SDGs, but towards a more sustainable and equitable future. If organizations are provided the support to strategically transform towards the SDGs, a bold vision for society may become closer to realization.