The world goals in practice: from poster to action at the workplace

The UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals often called SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) were adopted in 2015 as a common global agenda towards 2030. They cover everything from poverty and health to gender equality and clean water to climate responsible consumption and partnerships. Many companies have hung the colourful icons on the wall — but far from all have translated them into something that actually drives decisions.

§17 targets are too many to work on at once

A common error is trying to work with all 17 goals at the same time. It spreads effort so thin that nothing becomes real action. The recommendation from those who professionally work with the world goals in business is instead to select a few goals — often at most two or three — that the company can actually influence and that connect to its business.

§Materiality: find the goals that matter to you

To find the right goals, many companies conduct a materiality analysis: an assessment of which global goals the company's activities affect most, and which ones simultaneously affect the company's own business most — for example through risks or new markets. The goals closest to the company's core business are the ones that give it the most real impact, rather than symbolic gestures that have no connection to daily operations.

• 01Choose few goals — two or three are often enough to make a real difference
• 02Choose goals that naturally go together with your trade and work
• 03Make the goal concrete into something that can be measured and followed up
• 04Avoid using the world goals as pure marketing without action behind it.

§Examples from practice.

A transport company would naturally be able to tie its work to goals for sustainable industry, innovation and infrastructure and climate action through fuel savings and route optimization. A construction company can link itself to goals for sustainable cities and responsible consumption and production through material choice and waste management. The point is not to cover all goals but to find the place where your own trade actually makes a difference.

§From poster to everyday

For the individual employee the global goals first become meaningful when connected to something concrete in everyday life: a waste sort that supports responsible consumption goals an energy saving that supports the climate goal or a safety measure that supports health and wellbeing goals. In other words the global goals are not a poster you look at — they are a framework you can mirror your own daily work in if you know the connection.

The company that chooses few relevant goals and pursues them seriously achieves more real sustainability than the one that tries to signal all 17 at once without changing anything in practice.

§The world goals and the individual's competencies

Knowledge of the world goals is also becoming an increasingly sought-after skill for individual employees — not because you need to rattle off all 17, but because you need to see the connection between your own work and a bigger agenda that customers, partners and authorities increasingly expect to be taken seriously. Being able to put into words how your daily effort contributes to, for example, the climate goal or a goal for responsible consumption, is an advantage both in conversations with a customer and in internal dialogue about where the company should focus next.