Defning Business’ Contribution to the Socially Oriented Sdgs: Key Trends and Prospects

Abstract

Introduction. As the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015 offcially specify the current global challenges, they will positively affect the activity of all social institutions in the near future. This article considers the potential competitive advantages that business will acquire providing its engagement into the implementation of the SDGs. The authors suggest that the private sector’s involvement in the global sustainable development related issues has become one of the essential factors of business long-term competitiveness. The article also reviews the leading multinational companies’ solutions and initiatives aimed at the achievement of the socially oriented SDGs. Based on these business cases, the authors identify the key trends that characterize the private sector’s participation in the fulfllment of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.Materials and methods. General and private scientifc methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalizations, deduction and induction) form the methodological basis for this study.Results of the study. In the course of the study, the authors disclose several trends that characterize the private sector’s participation in the implementation of the “Agenda 2030”. Besides the companies’ aspiration to participate in the implementation of the SDGs that directly concern their core business operations, many multinational corporations nowadays actively contribute to the achievement of the socially-oriented SDGs which facilitates the resolution of many macroeconomic problems. In addition, there is an obvious trend of cooperation between the private sector and other stakeholders – primarily, governments and nonproft organisations. They create multi-stakeholder partnerships that allow the participants to pool resources and reinforce the positive effects within the implemented projects.Discussion and conclusions. Nowadays the SDGs present a particular guidance for the private sector, so the multinational companies have to review their business strategies in accordance with the challenges formulated on the global agenda. This study revealed the substantial competitive advantages that corporate sector would enjoy in case of its engagement in the implementation of the socially-oriented SDGs.

E-commerce effects for the sustainable development goals

“…There are various approaches to analyzing and classifying the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in modern literature. For example, the classification of the Goals by the "dimensions" of sustainable development [11], classification of SDG based on their significance for business [12], etc. After analyzing the connection between ecommerce and the achievement of sustainable development goals, we propose the following classification (Table 1).…”