Shared Value

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Authored by: Cherie Nursalim

Better Business,
Better World

Inviting CEOs to join BSDC, Giti, Unilever and others to adopt the SDG Pyramid as a path to our shared value future.

“In the fourth industrial revolution, there is a need for business to be reimagined,” Sunil Mittal, Chairman of the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC) conveyed at a strategy meeting in Bangkok. A transformative approach is proposed that includes reimagining business in the data, digital, sharing economy revolution such as our foray into digital learning and certification launching ICC Academy platform in Singapore to educate SMEs and professionals from trade finance to fintech. Reimagine business also revisits the core founding principle of the ICC as merchants of peace (through partnerships), to incorporate ecological and social realms as it played a key role as merchants of sustainable development in support of the United Nations 2030 agenda.

These three realms elegantly portray the UN seventeen sustainable development goals (SDG) through the SDG Pyramid. The first ten goals represent humanitarian, economic development, inclusiveness and people issues, the next five goals represent sustainability and ecological issues, and the last two goals on peace and partnership reflect spiritual and value systems.

As the world’s largest business organization with 6.5 million members across 130 countries, the International Chambers of Commerce is taking a representative role at the United Nations for business in COP climate meetings and in the promotion of the global goals.

What is clear is that ‘Reimagine Business’ is not only good for public image, it is a matter of survival. The great news is that it makes good business sense.

Better Business Better World highlights the opportunities. The SDGs open the sixty biggest market “hot spots” worth up to US$12 trillion a year in business savings and revenue and 380 million jobs opportunities by 2030. Led by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission with UN Foundation and Systemiq as managing partners, the report is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Global Green Growth Forum and governments agencies from Australia, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom.

The Commissioners, of which I am honored to be a member of, is led by Lord Mark Malloch Brown. He assembled distinguished leaders of business, finance, civil society, and international organizations International Chambers of Commerce Secretary General John Danilovich, Paul Polman of Unilever, Ho Ching of Temasek, Jack Ma of Alibaba, Lise Kingo of UN Global Compact, Sharon Burrow of International Trade Union Confederation, Mary Ellen of Women’s World banking, Gavin Wilson of IFC Asset Management, Richard Edelman, Hendrik du Toit of Investec, Hans Vestberg of Ericsson, Mats Granryd of GSMA, John Fallon of Pearson, WEF Young Global Leader Helen Hai among other.

Business needs to think beyond beating the quarterly profit target to focus on the shared value Sustainable Development Goals that are set for 2030. Business leaders have to ask what the SDGs mean for their own companies and sectors. They need to recognize that solutions call for collaboration across sectors beyond business and government to civil society. “Business leaders need to strike out in new directions to create opportunities aligned with sustainable and inclusive economic models.”

Those at the leading edge of business see that sustainability matters for becoming a successful business and it matters for our communities.

One of the hotspots in the report is “cultural tourism”. Giti Group is undertaking the opportunity to develop an Island of Happiness, the Kura Kura Bali Island development in the heart of prime Bali. The initiative is an eco-development project that is premised upon the Balinese Tri Hita Karana or Three Ways to Happiness values that align with the Balinese-Hindu based philosophy through the harmony of three realms – people harmony, ecological harmony, and spiritual harmony.

The SDG Pyramid aligns the seventeen SDGs across these three harmonies.

Launched by the Indonesian President at the APEC in Bali, Kura Kura Bali will house the United in Diversity Creative Campus and the UN global initiative Sustainable Development Solutions Network Southeast Asia, with a mission to advance the achievement of the SDGs. A global Island of Happiness crowdsourcing challenge will be launched in collaboration with Peter Diamandis to crowdsource solutions for this eco development around the G20.

We invite CEOs to adopt and promote the SDG Pyramid! Please join the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, Giti, Unilever and others to sign up before the UN General Assembly in September 2017 and Davos next year.

Cherie Nursalim is Vice Chairman, Giti Group, Chairman for UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Southeast Asia, Board Member of International Chambers of Commerce, and of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission. www.sdgpyramid.org