Global Goals Yearbook 2018
The future of the United Nations is more uncertain than at any time before. Like his predecessors, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has promised to reform the United Nations. Drivers are two major agreements: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Accord. Both stand for a move away from statal top-down multilateralism towards new form of partnership between the public and the private sector as well as the civil society. The Global Goals Yearbook, published under the auspices of the macondo foundation, therefore covers „Partnership for the Goals“ as its 2018 main topic. Our world is truly not sustainable at this time. To make the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a success story, we need an enormous increase in effort. This cannot happen without help from the private sector. But businesses need a reason to contribute as well as attractive partnerships that are based on win-win constellations. We have no alternative but to rethink the role that public–private partnerships can play in this effort. That is why United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is calling upon UN entities to strengthen and better align their private-sector engagement. In every change there is a new chance. The Global Goals Yearbook 2018 discusses the multiple aspects of how private sector engagement can be improved. Recommendations are, among others, to revise multilaterism, partnership models and processes and to invest more in trust, a failure culture as well as metrics and monitoring. When businesses engage in partnerships for the Goals, this is more than just signing checks. It means inserting the “do good” imperative of the SDGs into corporate culture, business cases, innovation cycles, investor relationships, and, of course, the daily management processes and (extra-)financial reporting. The Yearbook includes arguments from academic and business experts, the World Bank and the Club of Rome as well as UN entities, among them UNDP, UNSSC, UNOPS, UN JIU, and UN DESA.
The future of the United Nations is more uncertain than at any time before. Like his predecessors, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has promised to reform the United Nations. Drivers are two major agreements: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Accord. Both stand for a move away from statal top-down multilateralism towards new form of partnership between the public and the private sector as well as the civil society. The Global Goals Yearbook, published under the auspices of the macondo foundation, therefore covers „Partnership for the Goals“ as its 2018 main topic.
Our world is truly not sustainable at this time. To make the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a success story, we need an enormous increase in effort. This cannot happen without help from the private sector. But businesses need a reason to contribute as well as attractive partnerships that are based on win-win constellations.
We have no alternative but to rethink the role that public–private partnerships can play in this effort. That is why United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is calling upon UN entities to strengthen and better align their private-sector engagement. In every change there is a new chance.
The Global Goals Yearbook 2018 discusses the multiple aspects of how private sector engagement can be improved. Recommendations are, among others, to revise multilaterism, partnership models and processes and to invest more in trust, a failure culture as well as metrics and monitoring.
When businesses engage in partnerships for the Goals, this is more than just signing checks. It means inserting the “do good” imperative of the SDGs into corporate culture, business cases, innovation cycles, investor relationships, and, of course, the daily management processes and (extra-)financial reporting.
The Yearbook includes arguments from academic and business experts, the World Bank and the Club of Rome as well as UN entities, among them UNDP, UNSSC, UNOPS, UN JIU, and UN DESA.
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the other hand, we also want to anchor<br />
sustainable practices in the industry and<br />
play a key role in shaping the standards<br />
in our sector. That is why we are engaging<br />
in two leading global industry initiatives<br />
– Together for Sustainability (TfS)<br />
and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain<br />
Initiative (PSCI).<br />
Above: Adherence to the ban on child<br />
labor is essential in our partnerships with<br />
suppliers of cotton seed in India: Adults<br />
should work in the fields, not children.<br />
TfS, which Bayer helped to establish in<br />
2011, focuses on the supply chains of<br />
the chemical industry. It now comprises<br />
20 members, who represent a collective<br />
€224 billion in annual spending<br />
and have committed to sharing the results<br />
of supplier assessments and audits<br />
with each other in the spirit of “an<br />
audit for one is an audit for all.” This<br />
avoids the duplication of audits and<br />
assessments and allows suppliers to focus<br />
on improving their sustainability performance<br />
instead of pouring their resources<br />
into multiple evaluations.<br />
The fact that 62 percent of TfS-reviewed<br />
suppliers at Bayer have improved their<br />
sustainability performance within the<br />
span of one year affirms that our commitment<br />
is worthwhile. It also provides<br />
a firm foundation that helps other TfS<br />
members to establish long-term business<br />
relationships.<br />
Bayer is involved in TfS on several levels,<br />
with company representatives active in all<br />
four TfS workstreams and on the China<br />
Regional Committee, for example. I myself<br />
am one of seven elected members of<br />
the Steering Committee, which is working<br />
on the development of new standards for<br />
the industry and its suppliers, among<br />
other activities.<br />
The PSCI was founded in 2006. The initiative<br />
is steadily growing and currently<br />
has 30 member companies. The mission<br />
of PSCI is to provide members with a<br />
forum to establish industry principles<br />
that guide ethics, labor, health and safety,<br />
environmental sustainability, and management<br />
system practices to support the<br />
continuous improvement of suppliers’<br />
capabilities.<br />
Since 2011 Bayer has made significant<br />
contributions to the work of the PSCI.<br />
For example, a Bayer representative<br />
is the PSCI Chair for <strong>2018</strong>. Moreover,<br />
Below: Environmental protection is central<br />
to sustainable supplier management. For<br />
example, only treated waste water from<br />
production plants should be released into<br />
the surrounding rivers and lakes.<br />
Bayer specialists are also actively involved<br />
in all four committees of the initiative.<br />
Bayer furthermore provides subject matter<br />
experts for PSCI Supplier Capability<br />
Building Events, such as the 2017 event<br />
in Hyderabad and the 2017 auditor training<br />
events in India and China, to ensure<br />
that high-quality audits of our suppliers<br />
take place.<br />
Contributing to the UN Sustainable<br />
Development <strong>Goals</strong><br />
Behind all of our company’s activities<br />
is the goal of working with suppliers<br />
to achieve improvements that benefit<br />
society and the environment. After all,<br />
to achieve sustainability, everyone in<br />
the entire supply chain needs to work<br />
together. This affects the widest possible<br />
range of challenges – from climate<br />
change to access to clean drinking water.<br />
A company such as Bayer can do a great<br />
deal to help deliver the UN Sustainable<br />
Development <strong>Goals</strong>. In our case, this is<br />
particularly relevant to the goals of “zero<br />
hunger” and “good health and well-being.”<br />
Moreover, Bayer as a company can also<br />
be seen as a positive force in achieving<br />
other goals such as “clean water and sanitation”<br />
and “decent work and economic<br />
growth.” These UN Sustainable Development<br />
<strong>Goals</strong> have been incorporated<br />
into various activities within the Bayer<br />
Group that are either actively driven or<br />
supported by Procurement. Examples include<br />
developing a procurement concept<br />
to support the cultivation of sustainable<br />
palm oil, the Child Care Program, which<br />
tackles child labor in the cotton industry,<br />
and our collaboration with suppliers to<br />
improve their sustainability performance<br />
through the two industrial initiatives<br />
TfS and the PSCI. After all, sustainable<br />
procurement ultimately benefits us all<br />
– Bayer, our suppliers, the societies in<br />
which we operate, and most importantly,<br />
our environment.<br />
Thomas Udesen is the <strong>Global</strong> Head of Procurement<br />
at Bayer and an elected member<br />
of the Steering Committee for the global<br />
industrial initiative Together for Sustainability<br />
(www.tfs-initiative.com).<br />
<strong>Global</strong> <strong>Goals</strong> <strong>Yearbook</strong> <strong>2018</strong> 97
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