The Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty
The Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty, recognises businesses that can demonstrate positive impact against one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Awards close on 17 February 2017, 5pm GMT. Don’t miss the deadline! To find out more and apply, click here. Adopted on 25 September 2015, […]
Business on a Mission: How to Build a Sustainable Brand
By Andy Last, Co-founder, Salt Readers of Business Fights Poverty have seen story upon story of businesses stepping up their efforts to be a force for good in the world. Yet trust in business and business leaders remains low. Why is this? If businesses are doing more to do good, why doesn’t that translate into […]
The Year Ahead and the Need to Rethink Collaboration
2016 convinced me of the need to collaborate more deeply than ever: to deliver on the bold future envisioned in the new Sustainable Development Goals; to protect past progress made towards equality—now threatened by the politics of division; to tackle the deep social exclusion that has at least in part driven the political turbulence of […]
Top 10 Discussions of 2016
2016 saw our 100th online discussion, with over 1,300 comments posted over the course of the year! Online discussions have played a central role in our new Challenges as a way for members to share insights on the Challenge question. From next year, we will be upgrading our discussion forum to make it easier to […]
The Inclusive Innovators
Inclusive business — the pursuit of opportunities in traditionally unattractive or currently unprofitable market segments – is, increasingly, a strategic imperative for companies. Foregoing such segments could mean opening the door to disruption and closing it to options for future growth; this is an especially crucial concern that relates to developing economies, which represent the […]
Business Must Stand Up as a Champion of Progressive Values
Recent events in the US and UK have reminded me of a love story. When I was 12, I vividly remember my grandmother telling me the story of how in her early 20s she met and fell in love with my grandfather. But theirs was no ordinary love story. You see, she was an Anglo-Irish […]
Business Fights Poverty NYC 2016: Video and Summary Report
Poverty Footprint: A Unique Tool to Assess Business Impacts on Sustainable Development
By Ursula Wynhoven, Chief, Social Sustainability, Governance & Legal, UN Global Compact and Helen Van Hoeven, Deputy Director, Private Sector Department, Oxfam America As engines of economic growth, global companies have wide-ranging opportunities to positively affect the lives of the poor. Yet, company impacts on people living in poverty are largely not understood and under-reported. […]
Collaborating Across Sectors to Further Global Health
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 specific goals, and 169 associated targets that set out quantitative objectives across the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, all to be achieved by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Health has been recognized as crucial for sustainable human development (Alleyne et al., 2013) and an essential contributor […]
The 2016 SDG Business Forum – A Recap
The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held from July 11-20 2016 at United Nations Headquarters in New York is an annual platform for reviewing progress and guiding global efforts on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. During the first HLPF oriented towards the SDGs, the global business community was present […]
Sustainable Business and Sustainable Development – Two Sides of the Same Coin
Bhaskar Chakravorti explores how achieving the sustainable development goals is dependent on global business taking a leading role, but equally, the SDGs will help business orchestrate action. The UN General Assembly committed to “eliminate poverty in all its forms everywhere” by 2030, when it met in New York last year. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) […]
Big Opportunities and Inspiring Examples on World Hepatitis Day
A few years ago I had the privilege of leading a team of highly committed health professionals to provide healthcare services to some of the most marginalised people in our world: rural communities in South Sudan who were enduring immeasurable suffering from the 22 year civil war and ongoing ethnic conflicts. We trained nurses, midwives […]
How Can Sustainable Development Remain a Priority?
Bhaskar Chakravorti explores innovation in sustainable development amid Brexit, anti-globalisation and a worldwide slowdown. The summer is heating up with reminders that the first anniversary of the launch of the2030 Agenda is not far – and when it comes to implementing sustainable development worldwide, time passes rather quickly. The high level political forum (HLPF) on […]
Four Reasons Why GSK and Save the Children’s Partnership Stands Out
In recent years, collaboration between companies, governments and civil society has become an integral part of the development landscape. Its importance has been underlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which all sectors recognise cannot be achieved without partnership and the contribution of the private sector. Growing numbers of businesses are entering into partnerships, whether […]
Making the Global Goals Our Business
Not everyone gets to live their dream job, but I feel extremely lucky and grateful that I do. I lead GSK’s global employee volunteering efforts, including PULSE, our flagship program. PULSE is a skills-based volunteering program that matches up to 100 high-performing employees each year with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in need of their expertise […]
Three Ways Your Business Can Use the SDGs
Following the launch of the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development, there is general agreement that these targets can only be achieved if all areas of society, including governments, NGOs and the private sector, act together. Under the new framework, businesses now have a more explicit, central role in ‘ending extreme poverty, fighting inequality & […]
The Global Goals and the Ruggie Principles
“The Sustainable Development Goals represent the biggest opportunity for awareness-raising on business and human rights since the UN Guiding Principles [on Business and Human Rights] were introduced.” So said a respected speaker at the recent Business and Human Rights Symposium organised by the International Organisation of Employers. Equally, there is a consensus that the skills, […]
Transcending the Boundaries of Business School
In order to transform our world and achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we must look beyond the ‘way we do things’ in our own industries, learn to be adaptive and work in multi-sector teams. In early 2006, I walked into a room where the global CEO of Unilever, Barclays Bank, Porsche and […]
SDGs and Corporate Strategy – Putting the Two Together
Novozymes is a world leader in the industrial biotechnology space, head quartered in Denmark and providing B2B solutions (enzymes and micro-organisms) that on average save customers 100kg CO2 for every 1kg of product applied. As such, sustainability and positive societal impact are embedded in the corporation’s DNA. That was true 10 years ago, when the […]
Scientific Research for Gender Equality
This year on International Women’s Day, efforts to advance gender equality and sustainable development go hand in hand. The UN is commemorating the day under the theme “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step it Up for Gender Equality,” highlighting the importance of closing the gap in gender equality while building momentum to implement the Sustainable Development […]