The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East have put in check the Sustainable Development Goals that all member states of the United Nations committed to fulfill in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda. At the equator of the calendar, some of the 17 SDGs have stagnated and others are in regression, according to the UN. So much so that “if we do not act now, the 2030 Agenda could become the epitaph of the world that could have been,” denounces the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres.
Last September, the countries gathered at the UN General Assembly and the Sustainable Development Goals Summit recommitted to the SDGs and approved a roadmap to undertake “bold, ambitious, accelerated, fair and transformative” actions. . A meeting that laid the foundations for the 2024 Future Summit, which will be crucial to establish concrete actions that promote the SDGs until 2030.
The Spanish Network for Sustainable Development has published a report in which it highlights that for the third consecutive year “there is no progress on the SDGs worldwide and the world runs the risk of losing a decade of progress.” For this reason, the document calls for “a review of the global financial architecture to address the chronic financing deficit of the SDGs.”
The most delayed objectives, according to the study, are those that refer to hunger, sustainable diets and health (SDG 2 and 3), those that indicate terrestrial and marine biodiversity (SDG 14 and 15), and those that concern air and plastic pollution (SDG 11 and 12), and peace (SDG 16). For the United Nations, “the climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, a pessimistic global economic outlook and the lingering effects of Covid-19 have revealed systemic deficiencies and have significantly hampered progress on the SDGs.” This is stated in the latest special edition of the Sustainable Development Goals Report. Of the 140 goals agreed to meet the SDGs, “half are far or very far from continuing on the desired trajectory. Furthermore, more than 30% of these goals have not experienced any progress or, what is worse, have experienced a reversal compared to the 2015 situation,” they state.
The effects of the pandemic also paralyzed 30 years of progress in reducing extreme poverty, “and the number of people suffering from it increased for the first time in a generation.” If this continues, in 2030 there will be 575 million people in a situation of extreme poverty and 84 million children and young people will not be in school. The UN Secretary General denounces that “progress towards more than 50% of the SDG goals is weak and insufficient,” and assures that it is the poor countries that are being hardest hit by the triple crisis of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution.
A crisis amplified by the war in Ukraine, “which has caused the prices of food and energy to rise.” Guterres also warns “of the enormous financing deficit” of many developing countries, and affirms that “many are buried under a mountain of debt.” Because according to UN data, financial markets in general charge developing countries interest rates up to eight times higher than those of developed countries. Funding to stop climate change also falls far short of commitments, with developed countries failing to provide the promised $100 billion annually starting in 2020.
For all these reasons, Guterres advocates for “a profound reform of our outdated, dysfunctional and unjust international financial architecture” and demands that “economic and financial decisions prioritize the well-being of people and the planet.” “Governments and the private sector must reorient their economies towards resilient and low-carbon growth models,” concludes the UN Secretary General.
The Sustainable Development Goals Observatory, an initiative promoted by Esade and the ”la Caixa” Foundation since 2016, points out that we are living in an “environment of polycrisis that makes the transformations promoted by the 2030 Agenda difficult.” In its study, the contribution of Spanish companies to the Sustainable Development Goals, published in May 2023, it recognizes that “the multiplier effect of the recent crises has reversed, for the first time, years of progress in the 2030 Agenda and accentuates the differences between the global north and south. To change the situation, experts also consider it necessary to “reform the financing architecture of the SDGs, the role of agencies and development banks, and enhance the role of private actors in knowledge transfer and innovation operations.” .
The involvement of companies is also necessary, especially SMEs, which in Spain make up 99.8% of the business fabric. According to the Observatory, “it is essential to guarantee SMEs access to the information, resources and tools necessary to integrate sustainability into their business model and make decisions that promote sustainable development.” Although SMEs already implement sustainability practices, barriers still exist and “economic survival remains a priority,” the study states. One of the barriers is the regulation that the SMEs interviewed by the Observatory consider poorly adapted to reality. They also highlight excessive bureaucracy and a certain legal uncertainty.
María Jesús González Espejo, founder of Odesius and CEO of the Legal Innovation Institute, considers that “the SME has an agenda full of obligations, a shortage of personnel and often of financial resources, and the application of the SDGs will generally require dedication of time , money and effort.” And if you want to address the SDGs, he recommends “addressing only two or three objectives per year.” To speed up the process and for SMEs to commit to the Sustainable Development Goals, “I think certifications and seals help a lot,” explains González. “Creating this type of recognition for different SDGs and granting incentives of some kind to those who have them works. Within these incentives we can think of tax advantages or advantages related to the field of public procurement. That is, they are a requirement to access it,” she points out.
New technologies can also help SMEs address the SDGs, recalls this artificial intelligence expert. “The SDGs require identifying patterns, understanding where there are problems and AI is very good at that. It is also to control and supervise that objectives are met. For example, in terms of diversity and inclusion, it is clear that there is a lot of scope for application of AI, as there is also in reducing the carbon footprint,” she explains. “AI is more capable and objective than humans in these functions. That is why I find it very interesting to design use cases and develop solutions aimed at achieving the SDGs based on AI,” concludes González.
In Spain, unlike SMEs, large listed companies must report non-financial information since 2017, and in 2022 87% did so. Mentions to the SDGs have increased, according to the SDG Observatory, and if in 2017 only 27% of listed companies mentioned the SDGs in their non-financial report, in 2022 it was already 67%. This data should increase with the approval of the European directive on corporate sustainability disclosure (CSRD), which will apply from 2024.
However, according to the study sample, of 101 companies based in Spain that are listed on Spanish Stock Exchanges and Markets (BME), “mentions to the SDGs are becoming less and less ambitious.” Very few listed companies detail the actions they carry out to contribute to the SDGs, and the most mentioned objectives are 7 (Affordable and non-polluting energy), 8 (Decent work and economic growth), 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 13 (Climate Action).
Despite the progress, listed companies have many duties and challenges ahead. Only half of companies report the number of women in management positions and since 2017 the percentage of women on staff has stagnated at 36%. Regarding gender diversity and the wage gap, few companies report on their policies, and reports of workplace harassment policies decrease. The number of companies reporting improvements related to digital innovation is also decreasing. However, circular economy projects are increasing, with recycling being one of the star measures, followed by reuse and reduction.
The Observatory's study also denounces that in recent years and at a global level, greenwashing and brand positioning strategies have grown. Greenwashing is the practice whereby companies claim that they are doing more for the environment than they actually do. 50% of the websites analyzed by the European Commission contain vague descriptions, misleading messages and non-existent and inaccurate information about their sustainable products. They highlight the use of terms such as sustainable, conscious or environmentally friendly, and the attribution of these characteristics to the entire product when perhaps they only correspond to one of the components.
A greenwashing that affects all the SDGs, but especially 13, Climate Action, 14, Underwater Life, and 15, Life on Terrestrial Ecosystems. “Faced with the imminence of a climate cataclysm, the pace and scale of current climate action plans are totally insufficient,” says the UN. To limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, emissions should already be falling and need to be cut by almost half by 2030, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “This requires increasing ambitions, covering entire economies and moving towards climate resilient development,” the experts add.
Regarding underwater life, the United Nations warns that, despite the expansion of protection in marine protected areas, “the oceans are in a state of emergency.” In 2021, more than 17 million metric tons of plastic were polluting the oceans, and this figure is expected to double or triple by 2040. Terrestrial ecosystems are also in danger and almost 100 million hectares of plastic were lost in the last two decades. forest area, especially due to agricultural expansion. The oil palm harvest alone accounted for 7% of global deforestation between 2000 and 2018.
In addition to the aforementioned greenwashing, there are other dishonest strategies “such as pinkwashing, to refer to false defenses of the promotion of women, with actions against breast cancer or in support of the LGTBIQ collective, or others. issues related to diversity,” they denounce from the SDG Observatory. A practice that must be eradicated to really advance the SDGs, for example, the one that refers to gender equality, 5, where the data indicates that progress is being too slow. And even today, almost half of married women do not have decision-making power over their health and sexual reproductive rights.
At the current pace, it is estimated that it will take 300 years to end child marriage, 286 years to fill gaps in legal protection and eliminate discriminatory laws, 140 years for women to be equally represented in positions of power. and leadership in the workplace, and 47 years to achieve equal representation in national parliaments. Also regarding SDG3, Health and well-being, the UN denounces the stagnation in the reduction of maternal mortality, which means that every two minutes a woman dies from preventable causes.
