Responsabilidad Social y Sustentabilidad

1.4
Sustainable Development Goals

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 Responsabilidad Social y Sustentabilidad

1.4 Sustainable Development Goals

The most recent precedent of social responsibility can be found in scandals such as the
Exxon Valdes spill, in which the company did not believe it was obliged to clean up the oil
spill because the law did not require it. Prime mortgages, in which speculators saw the
opportunity to grow their portfolios by granting second mortgages, without verifying that
the beneficiaries could pay. The case of Nike, which in search of higher profits, used child
labor with minimum pay, among others.

As we saw in the previous topic, many international organizations have taken action to
promote actions to raise awareness, mainly in the business world, of their social and
environmental impacts in a globalized world.

Various tools have been developed to serve as guidelines at the international scale so that
civil organizations, companies and governments have a starting point for understanding
and acting on social responsibility and sustainability.

Some of the most important tools are:

• the Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social

Policy of the International Labor Organization (ILO);
• the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD);
• the European Union (EU) with the proposal and application of the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI);
• the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD);
• the United Nations Global Compact or Global Compact with its ten principles relating
to human rights, labor relations, the environment and the fight against corruption;
• the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) proposed in 2000 by the United
Nations and which gave way in 2015 to the new 17 Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) set out in the 2030 Agenda.

All these tools constitute an international effort to achieve standards of improvement in

many areas that concern human beings and that are voluntarily adopted and
implemented, since the main objective is to bring about a change of awareness in people,
governments and companies around the world.

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 Responsabilidad Social y Sustentabilidad

These tools arise in the midst of an international crisis of unfair or irresponsible practices
in various ethical and social aspects such as the exploitation of natural resources,
exploitation of people, lack of transparency in financial management or corporate
accounting fraud, among others.

At a global level, there are organizations that seek a more equitable development of the
people, the most important of which is the United Nations Organization (UNO), in this
topic we will address its history until reaching the programs it has developed to achieve
this goal, starting with the Millennium Goals and their results, to the Development Goals
that have as a goal their fulfillment by the year 2030.

The UN, has its antecedent in the early 20th century, specifically at the end of the First
World War, in which an organization called the League of Nations was founded in 1919 to
promote peace and security. As an affiliated body emerged the International Labor
Organization, however, the League of Nations ceased its activity after failing to prevent
the Second World War.

At the end of this war in 1945, 50 countries met in San Francisco, United States within the
United Nations Conference to draft the Charter of the United Nations. This charter gives
rise to the UN as we know it today. At the beginning, the general concern was to achieve
peace, the statutes of the International Court are given to provide a peaceful space to
settle the differences that may arise.

One of the first actions of this organization was the signing of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights in 1948. They are a common ideal among nations, they are based on the
inherent rights of all human beings with an absolute value of their intrinsic dignity, they
do not allow discrimination for any reason.

The Global Compact or United Nations Global Compact deserves a deeper explanation as
it is an initiative for companies to adopt 10 principles and take measures to support their
countries and the UN in achieving specific objectives that achieve greater equity in the
world. The 10 principles of the Global Compact are divided into three sections: Human
Rights, Labor Standards and Environment.

In the 90's the UN, together with the Global Compact, developed a proposal that would be
known as the Millennium Development Goals, consisting of 8 objectives. In 2000 this
proposal was signed by the 192 member countries with the commitment to achieve them
by 2015.

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 Responsabilidad Social y Sustentabilidad

The 8 MDGs

3. Promote gender
1. Eradicate extreme 2. Achieve universal 4. Reduce child
equality and women's
poverty and hunger primary education mortality
empowerment

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, 7. Ensure 8. Develop a global

5. Improve maternal
malaria and other environmental partnership for
health
diseases sustainability development

This commitment did not give the expected result, most of the signatory countries fell
short of expectations, to consult these results you can see the following link:
https://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/mdg/en/

Aware of this reality, the UN made a new proposal to achieve a considerable improvement
of conditions in all countries, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in which more
specific goals were set within each goal for each country and each organization to set
realistic objectives according to the goals.

Within the UN it is considered that this commitment is not only of the signatory countries
and companies and organizations linked to the Global Compact, but it is a commitment
and an ideal for all human beings. We can all review and set goals to contribute with a
grain of sand in the search for equality and equity of all human beings.

Sustainable Development Goals

They are also known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is an action plan
in favor of people, the planet, and prosperity in an environment of peace. The signatory
countries recognize that the mayor challenge is the first objective: the eradication of
poverty, since with this fact sustainable development cannot be achieved.

The 2030 Agenda is one of the most important tools within social responsibility. Its
conformation constitutes the participation of the 193 member countries that subscribed
to it, whose representatives have contributed issues of transcendence that generate

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concern in their nation, which has allowed the objectives to be followed, without a doubt,
to be globally representative.

The Agenda proposes 17 Sustainable Development Objectives with 169 goals of an

integrative and indivisible character that encompasses the economic, social and
environmental spheres.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are:

1. Eradicate poverty in all its forms worldwide.
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote
sustainable agriculture.
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all people at all ages.
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all.
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
6. Ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for
all.
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and
productive employment and decent work for all.
9. Develop resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable
industrialization, and foster innovation.
10. Reduce inequalities between and within countries.
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects.
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources to achieve
sustainable development.
15. Protect, restore, and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,
sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land
degradation, and slow the loss of biological diversity.
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.
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and reinvigorate the global
partnership for sustainable development.

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 Responsabilidad Social y Sustentabilidad

On the official UN website, you can consult the 17 goals and by clicking on each one of
them you will learn about the goals that comprise it. I invite you to visit the website and
familiarize yourself with the goals that apply to your profession.
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

The 2030 Agenda, considers in its management, the elaboration of progress and
compliance reports, which puts pressure on those involved in "the generation of actions
that guarantee its compliance, this time from more consultative scenarios and with
objectives of greater depth in its structure that contemplate development from multiple
dimensions and in a more comprehensive manner,” as stated by the United Nations
Program of Colombia on its website (UNDP, 2016).

Likewise, by generating progress reports, the implemented actions are managed little by
little in a systemic fashion, in a way that allows them to guarantee themselves, the
sustainability of the organization and consequently, guarantee the contribution with the
environment and with other actions of social responsibility.

As can be seen, the 2030 Agenda is an excellent initiative, but only for those who are
committed to society and its natural environment. The actions of this instrument are a
guide that allow many to learn and venture for the first time into social responsibility
topics and for others it is a possibility to improve their actions and management on the
subject.

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