Corporate Sustainability

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – known as Rio+20 – held recently in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, first between June 15 and 18 in the form of a corporate sustainability forum and subsequently through to 21 June as bilateral talks and meetings between heads of governments, aims to put the world on a more sustainable course in the environmental, social, economic and governance spheres.

Two decades ago when the United Nations hosted the Earth Summit in Rio only a few companies were exploring the notion of sustainable business and the long-term impacts of their operations on the environment and society. Today, there are thousands of companies making advances in corporate sustainability through a number of local and global initiatives.

Rio+20, in this context was an apt occasion to foster a stronger sense of shared purpose and collective responsibility between all actors – governments, corporations, investors, citizens, consumers, workers and educators – in order to move from the present status quo toward a more sustainable future.

One of the key takeaways from the conference remains the consensus that corporate sustainability is an essential element in achieving sustainable development, and underscores the urgent need for the UN to engage the private sector as a key partner. It has been realised and recognised that businesses play a vital role in the endeavour towards reaching a sustainable future, mainly through corporate sustainability – defined as a company’s delivery of long-term value in financial, social, environmental and ethical terms. While responsible business is a complement to, and will never be a substitute for government action, it has great potential to help advance sustainable development on a broad scale in line with the Rio+20 agenda.

Collaborative and solution-oriented engagement by the private sector can help launch widespread action in support of sustainability. Such actions, including foreign direct investment aligned with universal sustainability principles, can be an important complement to official development assistance in achieving UN objectives.

Businesses are increasingly moving into innovative and new opportunity spaces that drive corporate and investor success while delivering societal value, such as helping to lift people out of poverty through social enterprise or developing green products and processes. Despite positive developments and shifting trends, corporate sustainability as practiced today is insufficient – a quantum leap is needed. With the right incentives and conducive environments, the private sector can make significant and lasting contributions to the sustainable development agenda – not only in Rio but also beyond.

The conference had certain other takeaways like showing that the Global Compact Local Networks are robust platforms for local businesses to mobilise collective action, establishing that there can be no sustainable development without respect for human rights and demonstration of principle-based platforms and transformative partnerships in advancing critical issues – including sustainable energy, climate, water, food, women’s empowerment, children’s rights and good governance.

Businesses and other stakeholders today more than ever before are calling on governments to meet their own sustainability obligations and to help provide better enabling environments for companies to make their own contributions to sustainable development. The conference showcased leading technological and social innovations, emphasising that many solutions to sustainability challenges already exist and can be more widely adopted with the right level of support, particularly from governments and investors. Increasing the scale and intensity of sustainability efforts globally also requires the involvement of companies that have yet to embrace corporate sustainability and responsibility, the motivation of less advanced companies to deepen their commitment and efforts, and the inspiration of front runners to lead the way to the next generation of sustainability performance.

A review by the UN and its systems of their achievements on eight key development goals set under Millennium Development Goals in 2000 reveals that many targets are still far from being achieved with only two more years to go. Under such circumstances, the UN is also looking at the role that the private sector can play in complementing the establishment’s role in achieving the goals.

At a time when new sustainable development goals are being conceived as a critical link between human development goals and sustainability, it is important that spirit of public good is kept intact in all further deliberations to be able to distribute the ‘social dividend’ to the community in a fair and transparent manner.