The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
In September 2015, the core elements of the Agenda 2030 were adopted at the United Nations summit by all member states. These core elements are named Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The agenda 2030 was born out of the firm conviction that the challenges humanity is facing can only be solved by collective efforts. The 17 goals for sustainable development have been broken down into 169 individual goals. The SDGs apply to all countries of the world: developing countries, emerging economies and industrialized nations. The goals should be achieved by 2030.
But not only states are challenged. Business plays a prominent role in achieving the 17 SDGs with its innovative and investing power. At the same time the SDGs are offering new opportunities for economic growth. Companies committed to sustainable and responsible corporate governance will benefit from these possibilities.
Today, on one hand the SDGs provide an important orientation framework for companies focusing their business activities on sustainable development and on the other hand they shape the national and international debate on sustainability.
In 2017 Evonik began to record the positive contributions made by its products to achieving the SDGs. We have found that many of our products with a proven sustainability benefit are also growth drivers for Evonik.
Building on this, we developed our own method in 2018 to identify the SDGs that are particularly relevant for the Evonik Group.