5. Sustainable Development Goals

In earlier chapters, we introduced the contributions sustainability could make to the definition of effective statements of purpose, that is, the self-definition of the company’s impact on its environment and society. We then proceeded to develop the argument further and highlighted the fact that, while sustainability offers a broad palette of meaningful objectives to choose from, this very diversity can be its Achilles’ heel, that is, too many choices often leads to the wrong choices. We developed the concept of materiality, to distinguish those material sustainability issues that have meaningful business impact, from immaterial ones. Vectoring is thus gradually coming into perspective as a concerted corporate effort to properly set the moral compass through a pertinent sustainability-driven statement of purpose focusing on a limited number of material sustainability issues. In this chapter, we develop a better understanding of an outside source of drive and inspiration for many organizations and individuals, namely the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a unique initiative in voluntary global responsibility with clear targets and deadlines.