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Strategic steps to implement a sustainable development approach
Since the United Nations published the SDGs in 2015, business organizations face the question
of how to implement them into business activities. Most strategic approaches start with vision and
mission statements. When it comes to sustainability, they should also reflect the relevance of
SDGs and whether some goals are influenced by the organization’s activities.
As Herzner (2021) recommends, an organization should implement a holistic approach on
sustainability in its strategy, strategic actions and business models. Starting with designing a
sustainability understanding connected to moral values, this vision and purpose should be
communicated in an understandable way.
While these normative statements should be linked to the SDGs, the SDG compass is a concrete
five-step guide on how companies can align the SDGs and their strategy and normative DNA.
Figure 1: Sustainability Assessment Model
Source: Alexander Herzner, 2021
Step 1 - Understanding the SDGs
The SDGs succeed the Millennium Development Goals that ended in 2015. While the MDGs had
a strong focus on reducing poverty and improving health in developing and emerging countries,
the SDGs expand the challenge of ending poverty by widening the range of the inter-connected
topics. UN addresses these goals for universal application, while governments are supposed to
translate them into national action plans, policies and initiatives where companies can contribute
to. What makes the SDGs complex for organizations it that all 17 goals offer specific and
actionable sub-targets and actions (www.sdgcompass.org).
Developing and delivering solutions to contribute to accomplishing sustainable development
creates value for companies not only in their innate business activities, but also in the relation to
and interaction with their stakeholders.
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