Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Is this goal ambitious? Yes. But it can be achieved. By dedicating ourselves to a human-centric, rights-based approach across all the other 16 sustainable development goals will not only end poverty but also bring dramatic improvements in quality of life, the environment and governance for everyone.
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Hunger can be eliminated within this lifetime, if we create better opportunities for farmers and focus on the needs of undernourished groups. Sustainability means using fewer natural resources to produce food and reducing food waste and loss. Improved nutrition means reducing both hunger and obesity through improved education, and access and availability of quality foods
Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Innovation in terms of delivery models and technology mean is bringing the goal of healthy living for all within sight. Business models based on public-private cooperation unlock crucial investment without the need for massive infrastructure investment; meanwhile, telemedicine, precision medicine and other advances are bringing dramatic improvements in terms of effectiveness and cost
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Technology can help us to fundamentally transform education delivery and, with the right mix of policies and incentives, we can scale up early success stories. But we need to move beyond “first study, then work” to a model based on lifelong learning. Content and quality, too, must change, with the emphasis on critical thinking, collaboration and flexibility alongside “hard skills”. Business must play a critical role in the constant skilling, reskilling and upskilling of employees and broader communities
Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
We will not achieve any of our goals if girls and women are not equal partners to boys and men. We have made tremendous strides in awareness of the gender gap – from schools to boardrooms – it’s time to translate these movements and campaigns into action. Workplaces, governments and healthcare and education systems must be designed to provide a level playing field. Practices that have worked already must be adapted more broadly.
Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Let’s tackle wastewater, especially in towns and cities. This is a good way in, as 80% of it is currently not treated. Accelerating technology, partnership models and financing mechanisms to scale wastewater treatment solutions can create “new” reuseable sources of water for industry and agriculture and free up lots more fresh water for humans and nature.
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Evolution of distributed energy technology, maturity of financial tools and a greater awareness across stakeholders offer a new opportunity for solving the global issue of energy access. With technology largely available, the critical factors to overcome are the financial challenge – by making long-term investment projects both bankable and scalable – and the capability constraints. Enabling those will allow energy systems to reach their goal of affordability and sustainability today.
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Well-functioning and transparent institutions that effectively protect property rights, reduce red tape, combat corruption and keep nepotism in check are essential. Getting this right will create a stable and predictable business environment, which will, in turn, fuel investment, create jobs and facilitate the production of higher value goods and services in an economy.
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Through a resilient, trusted digital infrastructure we have a unique opportunity to add 2 billion people to the innovation process. Let’s enable collaborative innovation processes focused on eliminating waste of resources instead of replacing labour with technology
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
We need new policy frameworks and solutions that give economies every chance to drive growth that is inclusive and not limited to small elites. This means looking beyond redistribution to other levers that promote broad-based increases in living standards; for example, entrepreneurship, well-functioning financial systems and the upholding of ethical values in business and public spheres.
Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
A truly smart city needs multiple layers of intelligence – smart, transparent governance which devolves power to the city; a smart economy which promotes job creation and formalizes the informal; smart environmental management through the creation of intelligent infrastructure and a circular use of resources; and smart planning which creates dense, walkable, inclusive urban spaces.
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Let’s move on from a DUD (dig, use and dump) model, which pollutes nature and wastes money. We can constantly reuse resources and turn linear supply chains into value-adding closed loops. Less a DUD and more a circular economy. Technology and the internet of things can drive this. Governments can help too, by removing environmentally harmful subsidies and pricing natural resources right.
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
It starts with Paris. An ambitious global climate agreement will accelerate climate action and low-carbon growth. Putting a value on reducing carbon will help. Then, we must move the mindset from carbon compliance to “carbon positive” solutions. There are many cost-saving, value-creating, low-carbon innovations which will make your life and your business better.
Goal 14: Conserve and Sustainably Use Oceans
Healthy oceans provide 50% of our oxygen, 20% of our protein and 30% of our oil and gas. They are suffering. We must 1) recognize the problem; 2) form new partnerships for fishing, acidification, waste, marine transport; 3) forge new forms of regional and global governance to manage our blue commons.
Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
This is a big one. Critical solutions include: sustainable intensification and climate-proofing of agriculture; best practice landscape-level ecosystem management; scaled land-use planning with satellite observation; ecosystem economics and natural capital modelling; doubling down investment in sustainable rural development; empowering rural, indigenous and forest people; sorting land tenure and enforcing law, including for trafficking endangered species.
Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Over 4 billion people, in almost all countries of the world, lack access to justice. Helping these people have their basic human rights respected means thinking creatively about how to implement reforms that enable efficient and accountable institutions that foster peaceful societies. Crowdsourcing platforms for example, offer a brilliant way of raising awareness and fostering broad-based support for systemic change.
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
The SDGs say “what” to do, now we must figure out “how”. We need new alliances like those described above that tap the innovation of businesses, civil society, cities and governments. We need new models of using limited public money to draw in more private finance. There is room for us all to hack and innovate across every SDG, at large or small scales. We must.
