For me it would be knowing where people fall - either side of the line - on assessing things that we expect all companies to do (a universal assessment across 30+ sectors) - vs - assessing the more specific elements that are nuanced and different per sector, but contribute towards a transformation for the 2030 Agenda.
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@MarkHodge is absolutely right we need BOLD leadership to address the fundamental inequalities in society and in the value chains that serve our society. To Cory @gilmancd 's point it is all about brands standing up for their values and their purpose, serving their consumers with a hand-on-hearts decency through a commitment to responsible sourcing and ethical trading practices.
As informed consumers we should at least pay attention to where and on what we spend our money, consciously rewarding those companies who do go the extra mile to make a difference and for whom that additional effort matters and is reflected and acknowledged throughout their supply chains.
Understanding it from the perspective of the people who will ultimately use it (businesses and their customers) and making it both easy to implement and worthwhile.
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Adaption and integration into the businesses a lived purpose tied to the SDGs, reported and a commitment to learn from it.
Fairness and equity on all human rights and environmental justice fronts
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Last Q- A tough one, I think its about identifying key ‘levers of change’ for businesses to reduce their negative social impacts and increase their positive social impacts (both direct and systemic)- then use these to track corporate performance against them through disclosure and reporting.
Ahhh one, singular thing…
I might have to argue for transparency on payment reporting. For employees, that would mean salaries and benefits. For suppliers (i.e. farmers) that would mean FOB prices for products purchased.
It’s very easy to ignore the ripple effects of economic exploitation when it’s not explicitly stated. But if a company is forced to report what they are paying, then ideally pressure is created to improve compensation… and it becomes much more difficult to hide economic harm caused by other sustainability good generated. And I would also strongly argue that with livable incomes, many of the other social issues would become less acute
I will punt on “one single issue” but instead focus my response on “process” 
I think its critical that the interlinkages between the 15 focus areas are thought through and publicly shared. There’s an important space for public education in this process, in order to evolve perception, demand, and accountability at the decision making level. Seeing how these different areas influence and link to each other could help in their being prioritized by a sufficient volume of changemakers. We can’t keep talking in silos about the importance of social transformation. (Practically, I’m visualizing this as a network or web, and its worth investing time and resources into making this accessible in layman terms.)
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I would have to say, given that Poverty Eradication or SDG 1 is a meta-goal round which most other Global Goals revolve, I would have to identify fair trade practices as most important in terms of helping producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement commits to the payment of higher prices to exporters, as well as improved social and environmental standards.
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It’s important to highlight to what extent purpose/corporate responsibility is embedded into the organisation, i.e.:
- engaging employees
- able to demonstrate how it is bringing about change (e.g. showcasing best practices)
- fully integrated into the company’s goals and strategy
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@SineadDuffy and @MarkHauser say it very well from my perspective. Business needs to get its act together, look to its suppliers, customers and competitors and encourage them to act together to make a bigger difference than any one organisation can do on its own. This needs to be encouraged, facilitated and supported by government through PPP type exercises in which everyone’s money gets multiplied and their impact synergistically leveraged.
I would recommend to make room in your model for companies to internalize your benchmarks and connect them to company’s purpose. I don’t know how, but from my experience in companies I have seen many benchmarking and reporting models failing because they were too rigid. They did not allow companies to customize language and eventually failed to be actively used.
I would argue that indicators of Job Quality should hold a fairly central position. One of the unifying features of all businesses is that they rely on a workforce. Due to the profusion of evidence correlating employee satisfaction with firm performance such indicators are also useful to management teams and not only for the purpose of CSR reports. Management teams should track, and take business decisions based on changes in levels of absenteeism and voluntary staff turnover.
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A3: I’m here with @aidencholes. What we think of basics might be the ones that are hard to find in business practices around the world. We talk a lot about transparency and accountability, ethics, environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion, equality as being basic, but yet we get exposed to the lack of all the above time and time. We absolutely need to ensure these basics first.
Beyond that, businesses must start thinking about social impact. This cannot be something only public, non-profits, and social organizations think and work on. Businesses must also be purpose driven. It can start with making corporate social responsibility a core focus on the business. Eventually, the business itself should transform according to the needs of the society. Impacting lives, empowering society as a whole should become the core value of any business.
Perhaps a purpose tied to delivering sustainable cities could capture all.
Absolutely agree @Hdalmut319 Impact is an ecosystem, not a silo. Without recognizing that and leaning into it, the work gets muddled
Wow - so many comments and thoughts. We will be sharing a summary of this discussion soon. So please do keep adding your thoughts here.
Thank you all so much for your time and thoughts.
We are now heading to a panel session exploring how Boards can help businesses realise their purpose. And hopefully we can then rebuild better.
**Join us here in our zoom auditorium: **
Use the Passcode: 673717
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Thanks for joining everyone - we’ll be heading over now to the Virtual Lounge for our peer discussion and networking session: https://snipbfp.org/LOUNGE
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Fully agree Cory! Great final words!
The term social might need a definition for specific context though within a harmonized framework. For me I go back to corporate social responsibility and companies responsibilities to contribute to the delivery of societal goals and to help solve problems. It is for that reason for me this discussion and related conversations with business on the issue of “purpose and profit” , takes me to the UN SDGs and related or country specific ambitions. But as you rightly said an explicit tie and context should be made.
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What would a common set of core social expectations that all companies must meet look like?
The reporting standards referenced above such in GRI and WBA above are excellent instantiations; I believe a core set of values, such as ‘do no harm’ ‘manage resources to sustain current levels for the next century’ that are specific enough to make a thesis that someone could disagree with, but general enough that it would be very odd indeed for someone to actually disagree. Companies often employ company cultural values to clarify which strategies they will and won’t use to achieve their goals, so that is where I draw inspiration from. -
What are the current critical gaps or stoppages that prevent this from happening at the moment?
We are all familiar with the lack of coherence and fragmented adoption of different ESG / social welfare standards adoption across sectors and industries. Could this be because the founding tenets of corporations / firms left little room on the table for explicitly valuing social equity, and thus now trying to reverse/addend those founding tenets is naturally a pernicious, persistent gap? -
Beyond the basics, what are the key social transformations that companies can contribute to?
I am interested to clarify how ‘basics’ is meant to be defined here, apologies if I missed the earlier discussion to define. But if I try to think of something that companies haven’t done very much of, but could, I think about sponsorship and mentorship. At least in the U.S., ‘public’ education is seen as separate from ‘private’ enterprise — even though private enterprise could not function without the knowledge that public education provides. Observing the increasing risks of job loss associated with advancements in AI, I would like to see companies doing more to provide subsidized education programs. Of course that introduces the concerns that those educations programs will focus on a specific, problematic ideology …