Collective action required to achieve Sustainable Development Goals

Unilever’s ‘Mobilising Collective Action’ panel event, held last week to mark the fifth year progress report of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, brought together leading experts to discuss practical ideas and actions that will enable Australia to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The roundtable event focused on five of the 17 global goals — gender equality, life on land, climate change, responsible consumption and partnerships — where collaboration is needed to achieve transformative change on a large scale. As noted by Clive Stiff, chairman and CEO of Unilever Australia & New Zealand, “The changes needed to deliver the goals stretch way beyond Unilever or any single company, government or NGO.”

Speaking on gender diversity, Elizabeth Broderick, founder of Male Champions of Change, said, “We must redefine what normal looks like in Australia, and we must ask, ‘50/50: if not, why not?’. We should ask for transparency about gender statistics at the point of making buying decisions and continue to educate Australians about gender parity by building the principles into education curriculums.”

Continuing with Life on Land, WWF CEO Dermot O’Gorman said, “We need to start with traceability and certification, looking at the supply chain and solving the problem of how to make it business as usual across the whole sector. Then we must change consumer behaviour. Food waste might be the best starting point as it will be a critical issue.”

On the topic of climate change, The Climate Institute CEO John Connor said that businesses should “use their individual and collective voice to explain the benefits and common ground in tackling climate change. They should support good policy development and highlight the costs of inaction, as well as demonstrate transparency and work collectively with their supply chains to help make it happen.”

Speaking on responsible consumption, Andrew Petersen, CEO of Sustainable Business Australia, said, “We need to inspire and educate consumers to make more informed decisions and understand how the products they purchase can have a positive impact on the world. It is also really important that the Australian territories and states comes together on resource use and create a national plan, rather than having individual strategies that don’t speak to each other.”

Trent Moy, a senior consultant at The Ethics Centre, reported on partnerships. He said, “We need to rethink how we partner — from creating more visibility of existing partnerships and discussing what worked so others can learn, to taking the competitiveness out of partnerships and allowing business to politely steal from each other where it is beneficial to society.”

Sustainability experts at the event called on businesses to focus their reach, expertise and resources on the areas where they can have the most positive impact.