Sales trend 2 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trend Report for 2020 is about what businesses and sales teams can do now to start making a difference for people and the planet.

barrett-salesblog-a-better-way-of-doing-business trend 2The time is NOW.

The time for talking is past. The planet and its inhabitants can’t wait any longer. Now is the time for decisive action.

Businesses and organisations can, and should, be part of the solution and support sustainable development, wellbeing and a prosperous future for all.

The blue print is here.

The navigation system is ready for deployment. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for every business and organisation in the world to be part of achieving the 2030 targets and thousands of businesses have already answered the call.  

What are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)?

How did the SDG come to be

The United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945, after the Second World War, with the purpose of maintaining international peace. This primary goal has grown to what the UN is today and enabled them to act on issues which threaten humanity including maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law. 

Since then, the world has changed immensely and improved by almost any measure. However, all that improvement is still not enough and much remains to be done. There are also other areas that were not a threat to humanity when the UN was funded but now are –e.g. climate change.

In answer to some of these threats, the UN has evolved and created and funded several different organisations and initiatives to deal with specific issues.

One of these initiatives was the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), a 15 year global effort to fight poverty that started in the year 2000. This initiative was highly successful and at the same time served to highlight shortfalls that needed attention and also created a system that worked at achieving set goals. The experience from the MDG helped set up new goals and commitments. These new interconnected 17 goals are the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.[1]

  • End poverty in all its forms everywhere
  • End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
  • Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  • Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  • Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
  • Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
  • Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
  • Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
  • Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation
  • Reduce inequality within and among countries
  • Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
  • Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
  • Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
  • Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
  • Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
  • Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
  • Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development

What is the role of business in all of this?

These targets are very ambitious and, acknowledging that it was going to take an unprecedented effort to achieve, the United Nations Develop Program (UNDP) – the lead UN development agency- recognised that there needs to be partnership of governments, private sector, non-governmental organisations and people in order to succeed in these goals.

Businesses have to play a critical role in the process and so the UN Global Compact was developed to drive businesses to support the achievement of the SDG by 2030.

The UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative based on commitments to take steps to support UN goals. It calls for companies to align with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption and to advance societal goals.

The principles

Every business can play a part, no matter how big or small, it all starts by incorporating the 10 principles into their strategies and operations:

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

Principle 4: The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;

Principle 5: The effective abolition of child labour; and

Principle 6: The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;

Principle 8: Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and

Principle 9: Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

What does all these mean for businesses?

It makes business sense to follow these 10 principles and support the SDGs: a business with a long-term vision and strategy renders better results[2]; businesses need stable economies and healthy employees to succeed and environmentally sustainable companies are trusted more than their non-sustainable counterparts. A good business promotes the prosperity and well-being of the community in which it operates generating sustainable economic growth, which in turn benefits the business.

Businesses can join the UN Global Compact as signatories or participants, with different levels of membership benefits.[3]

Examples

Many businesses and organisations around the world have been part of the initiative from the beginning, others joined in later and many more are going to join in the near future as the message gets out. Its clear: we are all in this together and we have to make it work now.

Unilever have aligned their already established pillars for sustainable growth to the SDGs to ensure they can track their progress and contribution across each area. Furthermore, their former CEO, Paul Polman –who was part of the UN’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda- would ask every time a business initiative within Unilever was proposed how such initiative would help progress a SDG. [4]

Ikea is working in alignment with the SDGs and is committed to advance each of the 17 goals. Among these initiatives is the plan to run 100% on renewable energy by 2030 and to produce all the renewable energy it consumes; it has developed compostable packaging[5] and is working towards using renewable and recycled materials.[6]

In Australia, the Global Compact Network Australia (GCNA), brings together signatories to the UN Global Compact, including a number of Australia’s leading companies, non-profits and universities, to advance corporate sustainability and the private sector’s contribution to sustainable development.[7]

GCNA lists some of the benefits[8] of becoming a signatory of the UN Global Compact:

  • Align your sustainability approach with the world’s largest and only UN-backed corporate sustainability framework.
  • Unprecedented networking access with the UN Global Compact participants – representing nearly every industry sector and size, in over 160 countries.
  • Demonstrate leadership and profile your achievements.
  • Shape national and international dialogue on emerging and critical issues.
  • Access to partnerships with a range of stakeholders – to share best practices and emerging solutions.
  • Access tools, resources and trainings.
  • Participate in the GCNA Conference and other world-class events such as forums, workshops and dialogues.

What is the role of sales?

Now more than ever businesses need to run ethical, human-centred sales operations. There is nowhere to hide anymore.

An ethical human-centred sales operations is the only way forward.

Here are a few points to consider to develop or redesign a sales operation:

Code of conduct

Develop a clear code of conduct in line with an ethical framework and train all of your staff, especially your sales and customer service teams, on it. 

Strategy

Develop a targeted sales strategy that guides and directs your team as to where you want them to go, who you want them to work with and why.

Process

Design a sales process aligned with your code of conduct and strategy so your team can see how everything fits together and what they need to do to follow and apply it successfully.

People

Train your team in ethical selling practices; make promises you can keep and keep the promises you make.

Customers

Not all customers are good customers. It’s time to make a stand and stop doing business with organisations that, through their operational approach knowingly harm the environment, the well-being of the people involved or contribute in any way to corruption, modern slavery and deception.

This trend sees courageous board members, business and sales leaders walking the talk and taking action towards a better way of doing business.

Remember, everybody lives by selling something

[1] https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html

[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/long-term-capitalism/where-companies-with-a-long-term-view-outperform-their-peers

[3] https://www.unglobalcompact.org.au/membership/how-to-join

[4] https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/our-strategy/un-sustainable-development-goals/

[5] https://about.ikea.com/en/sustainability/becoming-climate-positive/what-is-climate-positive

[6] https://about.ikea.com/en/sustainability/a-world-without-waste

[7] https://www.unglobalcompact.org.au/about

[8] https://www.unglobalcompact.org.au/membership/how-to-join

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