• Program 2015-16

UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals - Impacts on Companies and their Stakeholders

Date: 

October 13, 2015

Time: 

6:00 - 8:00 pm

Host: 

Baruch College | Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity

Venue: 

Baruch College l Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity - Room 750, 151 E. 25th Street (between Lexington and 3rd Avenue)

Between 2000 and 2015, United Nations Millennium Development Goals were powerful tools in setting the development agenda for nations, municipalities, companies and their stakeholders. They set time-bound quantifiable targets addressing the various aspects of extreme poverty, gender equality, education and environmental sustainability. In the last 15 years, the world has taken major strides towards achieving many of these goals, notably by helping to lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty, reducing hunger, enabling more girls to attend school than ever before and to protect our planet. While there is still progress to be made, they were effective in generating new and innovative partnerships, galvanizing public opinion and showing the immense value of setting ambitious goals and measuring progress toward achieving them.

They also provided strong leadership for business. The MDGs helped shape systems of sustainability reporting and accountability, such as the GRI framework; they have focused more attention on developing KPIs for sustainability, on ESG metrics, and on moving corporate valuation away from simple short term financial quarterly reports and towards a broader look at social value and environmental risks.

As we embark on the post-2015 development agenda, the newly launched Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will set the agenda for global action for the next fifteen years. The SDGs cover a broadened range of sustainable development topics with 17 goals and 169 specific targets. They expand on the 8 previous goals (poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, maternal health, child mortality, HIV-AIDS, environmental sustainability, global partnership) and incorporate new goals and targets related to sustainable energy, economic growth and employment, resilient infrastructure, inequality, improvement of cities and settlements, sustainable consumption and production, climate change, sustainability of the seas and ecosystems, and a promotion of peaceful, inclusive societies.

This discussion will address what the new SDGs mean for the business community, seeking to answer:

  • How will the SDGs push the sustainability agenda forward, involving companies as partners?
  • What are resources for companies seeking to align their corporate responsibility goals with the SDGs?
  • What impact will they have on the development of legislation or incentives affecting companies?

Panelists:

Vice President, International Development at MasterCard Worldwide;
Deputy Director, UN Global Compact;;
World Business Council for Sustainable Development – US ;
Director of Communications and Sustainable Development for SABMiller Latin America;
Head of Corporate l Stakeholder Relations, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI);

Moderator:

VP Labor Affairs, Corporate Responsibility and Governance, US Council for International Business