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United Nations Sustainable Developments Goals

The world was facing numerous challenges to sustainable development, when the resolution Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was signed by leaders of all countries participating in the General Assembly of UN dated 25 September 2015. Among those most important challenges, poverty, inequalities, disparities of opportunity, wealth and power, global health threats, natural resource depletion and climate change stood out in the final resolution document, underlining the fact that in many parts of the world societies and biological support systems are at risk (2030 Agenda 6).
The announced Agenda included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with 169 associated targets, integrated and indivisible, set to benefit all signing States for today’s generation and for future generation, and to be implemented in a manner consistent with international law.
Out of 15 years timeframe for targets achievement, more than 20% has already elapsed, without the world seeing effective progress. On the contrary, cases like Pepsico, Unilever and Nestlé being accused of complicity in the destruction of Sumatra’s last tract of rainforest shared by orangutans, (Yildiz 2016) plantations built on deforested land that have allegedly been used to supply palm oil to brands like McDonald’s, Mars, Kellogg’s and Procter & Gamble (RAN 2016), the “emissionsgate”, the Volkswagen emissions scandal (Ewing 6), or more recently the Celtejo pollution case of river Tagus detected by the Portuguese Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Zero[1],  demonstrates that we are far from seeing progress toward that agenda.
In short, one might say that some of the SDG are less applicable to every private business, namely Objective 14 – Life below Water. Nevertheless, all of them can be considered through an angle that organizations may contribute to its implementation. Yet to be proved is a genuine commitment and true progress towards SDG from all for-profit organizations.




References

European Union. Treaty of Maastricht.Office for Official Publications of the 

European Communities, 1992

European Union. Treaty of Amsterdam. Office for Official Publications of the 

European Communities, 1997

Ewing, Jack. Faster, Higher, Farther. How one of the world's largest automakers committed a massive

and stunning fraud. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. Publishers, 2018.

Rainforest Action Network. The human cost of Conflict palm oil. Indofood: Pepsico’s hidden 
link to worker exploitation. Report, June2016.
United Nations. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015: 70/1. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. <http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E>
_______________. Human Development Report 2016. New York: United Nations, 2016.
World Commission on Environment and Development. Brundtland Report. Our Common
Future: From One Earth to OneWorld- A/42/427 Annex. Overview – UN 
Documents: Gathering a body of global agreements.Retrieved from <www.un-documents.net>

Yildiz, Ashley Schaeffer. Urgent Action for Endangered Orangutans.The blog of the Rainforest Action Network. Posted 23 November 2016. <https://www.ran.org/ashleyschaeffer>



 



[1]See on <https://zero.ong/ministerio-do-ambiente-confirmou-a-zero-descargas-ilegais-da-celtejo-em-2015-2016-e-2017/>

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