How Businesses Can Accelerate and Scale-Up SDG Implementation by Incorporating ESG into Their Strategies

Mahmoud Mohieldin, Sameh Wahba (), Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez and Miral Shehata ()
Additional contact information
Sameh Wahba: World Bank
Miral Shehata: Independent Economic Researcher

Chapter 3 in Business, Government and the SDGs, 2023, pp 65-104 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Businesses are confronted with both global and local risks. Firms’ reactions to concerns about sustainable development can minimize risks, boost positive impacts, and benefit society, markets, and ecosystems. Even though the SDGs were designed for governments and not for the private sector, businesses’ greatest contribution to the 2030 Agenda is incorporating ESG components into their strategy and therefore scaling up and accelerating SDG implementation. The private sector must be more responsive to the long-term development needs of each location where it directly operates, as well as the needs with downstream or upstream value chain implications. While businesses are stepping up to help achieve the SDGs, acceleration is needed. The world is rapidly changing and problems may intensify. As a result of such changes, businesses must rely on innovation and technology to achieve the SDGs. It is also important that firms measure and demonstrate their contribution toward this achievement. Though a company may have the individual resources to meaningfully contribute to society and the environment, a corporation can only sustainably do so in collaboration with other businesses, CSOs, or the government. When the private sector collaborates with national and local governments on long-term growth and value creation, the result will be much more effective. During the first year of COVID-19, with the added influence of the climate crisis, there was an increased need for corporations to form strong public–private partnerships with national and local governments, as well as engage in private–private alliances with other enterprises and entrepreneurial endeavors. Progress in the private sector is critical to the 2030 Agenda. Businesses not only shape the market, but also the state and society. Governments, civil society, firms, investors, and consumers must jointly collaborate in achieving global and local goals relating to the SDGs.

Keywords: SDG; ESG; Corporate sustainability; Impact investment; Private sector; Business; Net-zero; Climate action; Green recovery; Partnerships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-11196-9_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031111969

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-11196-9_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().