Constituting Switzerland’s first Global Compact Dialogue, over 200 business people, government and NGO representatives, as well as journalists and students, gathered in early February in Berne to discuss what appears to be a new reality: responsible and sustainable business approaches are becoming mainstream.
Growing numbers of companies are realizing that becoming more involved with the 117 Sustainable Development Goals not only makes good business sense, but can bring about a veritable developmental shift. “There is clearly a change in mindset among those companies,” said Ole Lund Hansen, chief of the UN Global Compact’s Local Networks, a world-wide initiative of 160 countries, incorporating over 8,000 companies and 4,000 institutions representing business, civil society, academia, industry associations, and media. (See article on the Firmenich-Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation latrine partnership)
A boy runs through the smoke of burning garbage near the Niger River in Bamako, Mali on December 9th, 2012. PHOTO: UNICEFOfficially, the SDGs have the objective of “building a better world” by 2030. Basically, observed Manuel Sager, Director General of the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC), “We need to use the SDGs as a business model to invest and innovate.” This includes creating partnerships between the private and public sectors s a means of fighting corruption and promoting education. The SDC already has 30 such partnerships for disaster response, agriculture, and water technologies. Nevertheless, while the upper echelons of firms such as Swiss Post (61,000 employees), Switzerland’s third largest employer, understand the concepts of the SDGs, they remain a totally alien concept for most ordinary people. Swiss Post’s head of communications, Marco Imboden, admitted that many of his company’s own employees have no idea what an SDG is. “This may take years to seep down,” he noted.
Everyone needs to be responsible: not just governments and companies
There are clearly numerous challenges for making more socially responsible and sustainable approaches work. As pointed out by Global Compact’s Antonio Hautle, this should not be solely the responsibility of governments, NGOs and companies. “Everyone should be responsible,” he said. “Fortunately, we are not starting at zero.” Switzerland is already well-advanced. “What we can do is bring the agenda of business and world development ahead.”
Chin State, remote and mountainous and one of the poorest regions of Burma/Myanmar, was also among the hardest-hit by floods. PHOTO: UNICEFSustainable development is far more economically productive
The main challenge is to go beyond business as usual without simply ticking the boxes or promoting “greenwashing” for PR purposes. “There will always be conflicts in attaining these goals,” explained Markus Mugglin of the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. “But there are clearly many ways of expressing one’s interest.” Another issue is how to bridge the pressures of implementing simpler short-term options against more sustainable, longer-term ones. As several participants pointed out, while genuine sustainable development may at first seem difficult, if not costly, the reality is that in the end it is far more economically productive both for consumers and shareholders.
For Katrin Muff of the Business School of Lausanne, “there really is no other option than developing more sustainable economies.” While the SDGs make sense, she said, they are also “rather generic.” So how does one turn them into effective tools for business? One has to ensure they have local and global relevance, which should not be too difficult given that they represent trillions of dollars of market opportunities. The key, Muff said, is how to engage people on the outside. How can we eliminate poverty and hunger? What is going to keep the CEO awake at night?”
As they stand, the SDGs act as an ambitious guide to the world’s most critical problems, whether poverty, food security, health, or climate change. But according to the 2017 Global Opportunity Report produced by UN Global Compact and other partners, they also represent the world’s largest marketing opportunities, such as the development of new technologies, robotics and big data, or by taking advantage of possibilities on the “edges” of existing markets. This is particularly attractive to small and medium-size companies, which are “more purpose-driven,” it said.
For Robert Heinzer of the Victorinox Group, which not only makes renowned Swiss Army knives but now also clothes, “it is part of running a company successfully.” Operating since the late 19th century, Victorinox’s emphasis always has been on job creation. “This is the basis of our business,” he said. “If you don’t create and maintain employment, you can’t support the SDGs properly.”
Investment is key
A further key factor is the role of sustainable investors. According to Sabine Döbeli, CEO of Swiss Sustainable Finance, they play a critical function within companies. “Their engagement adds exceptional value,” She said. In 2015, sustainable investments reached an estimated 10 trillion Euros worldwide, she noted. Swiss sustainable investments alone now stand at CHF 191.9 billion (180 billion Euros) since 2013.
Speaking as a civil society representative, Laurent Martile of Alliance Sud, a Lausanne-based NGO, agreed that business is a vital partner for achieving the SDGs. In 2013, industrial countries invested $778 billion in the developing world, he said, while public aid barely accounted for 3 per cent of investments needed. “So clearly, the business community is crucial for bringing about real change.”
…But how to put the message across
For many, however, a vital question remains: how to put the message across. For Joanna Hafenmayer, founder of the Responsible Corporate Leadership Forum (RECOL), advocates need to speak the language that everyone understands. “I often find that it is like looking at an iceberg. We talk, but we’re not really doing anything. People wish to have an emotional involvement that they can support.” Swiss Post’s Michael Heim further stressed the importance of communicating with people who may not be involved, but wish to understand. “For me, what is central is that we do not isolate ourselves and are not able to move. These elements need to be translated into a language that people understand, such as making it part of education. We cannot expect stakeholders to learn our language. It has to be the other way around.”
By Daniel Wermus and Edward Girardet, editors.
