“I have no doubt that the Sustainable Development Goals are good for business,” he says Marina Grossi, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, CBDES, referring to the impacts of the global agenda that will be adopted this weekend by more than 190 heads of state gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York.”Companies have already have expertise in sustainability. They already apply several of these SDGs [sustainable development objectives] and sometimes they don't even know it”, says André Gustavo de Oliveira, president of the Brazilian Global Compact Network, a UN initiative created in 2000 to bring together issues of human rights, the environment and the fight against corruption. of the business world. It is present in more than 140 countries with 8,000 participants, 700 of which in Brazil.
He cites SDG 6, which deals with water and sanitation and illustrates with a Global Compact initiative in Brazil that seeks to reduce water losses in distribution. Piloted by Braskem and Sanasa, the intention is to have more effective water management together with municipalities and communities. “I don’t see the private sector acting effectively as a driver for more evolved societies, without taking the SDGs into account in its strategy.”
Marina says that there is an effort by large associations in the business world to translate the UN's global goals into tools for action in the business world. “Companies already use methodologies to measure their socio-environmental impact”, he says, referring to the application of SDG 1, which aims to eradicate poverty.
In January, the UN promises to deliver global indicators so that the 169 SDG targets can be measured. In Brazil, the work has been led by IBGE. “The issue is that companies cannot only be called upon when presenting results, they have to be called upon to formulate indicators”, she says, repeating a demand from civil society organizations.
The issue now will be implementing the 17 SDGs and their almost 170 targets. In an effort to make the path that is expected to guide global development until 2030 more palatable, the UN called in Richard Curtis, screenwriter of the film “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. He packaged everything differently. The 17 SDGs – which it calls “Global Goals” or “Global Goals” – converge into three main objectives: eradicate poverty, combat inequality and contain climate change.
The lack of financial resources for an agenda that requires trillions of dollars is an obstacle to global goals becoming concrete. A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that around US$ 267 billion per year are needed to eradicate hunger by 2030.
The challenge is no longer money, but it is how to apply the resources that are there”, says Virgílio Viana, board member of SDSN-Global, a UN network. “The financing mechanisms that already exist must be synchronized with the SDGs”, he states. Viana illustrates with the investments of development banks, such as BNDES or the Inter-American Bank, which finance roads, ports or subways.
“Their vision has to change so that their financing stops being just infrastructure projects and becomes sustainable development projects for that territory”, says Viana, who gives a message to companies: “Now we have to educate decision makers in the private world ”.
The SDGs are transversal to each other. Goal 5 deals with gender equality, a topic that is present in 12 other global goals. “There is awareness in member countries that, without gender equality and women's empowerment, sustainable development is not possible,” says Nadine Gasman, representative of UN Women. “There has to be a gender and race perspective so that we have public policies, investments and programs that have an impact.”
Daniela Chiaretti, for Valor Econômico – 25.09
