“No plan B because there is no planet b!”
Ban Ki-moon put it best. “We don’t have a plan B because there is no planet B.” The former chief of the United Nations was talking about mankind’s need to transform the world. Where, though, should the human race begin? We are surrounded by hurting people on a hurting planet. Which priorities should we follow? What goals should we target?
The United Nations gathered its 193 countries to discuss this, along with NGOs, companies, academics and other experts. 2015 had marked the completion of the Millennium Development Goals and the world wanted a further set to serve as lodestars, going forward. After 18 months, they came up with 17 global goals for the world to address by 2030. They call them the Sustainable Development Goals: the SDGs.
Through Crossroads’ Global Hand service, our IT team continued to partner with the UN through further iterations of a website that brings them all together: www.business.un.org
On September 24th, 2015, the day the SDGs were launched, the revised website was launched as well. That marked our tenth year of partnership with the UN on this project.
During the current period, we saw a wide range of corporate engagement through this website’s varying services.
CORPORATE COMMITMENTS TO SDGs
During the year, 36 major corporate commitments were published toward fulfilling the SDGs. Examples include companies from the following sectors:
- Health Care: Novartis made commitment to cut greenhouse gas use to 50% of 2010 levels.
- Industrial: Novozymes made commitment to save 100 million tons of CO2 by 2020.
- Telecommunications: Schneider Electronics made commitment to reduce operational CO2 emissions and factor CO2 minimising into all new large customer projects.
- Energy: ENEL planned to invest Euro 8.8 billion from 2015-2019 into renewable energy. This will make it the largest renewable energy operator in Africa.
- Construction: STET made commitment to replace water intensive mineral process with waterless and low emission technologies.
- Retail: H&M made commitment to purchase energy from renewable sources, expecting that to be 80% of their current usage.
COMPANY PLEDGES FOR REFUGEE CARE
As the world grapples with a refugee challenge of unprecedented size and scope, companies used the website to make pledges in response. During this period 38 significant pledges were published totaling an estimated US$22 million. Following are a few examples.
- Deutsche Telecom pledged shelter location, provision of Wifi and pre-paid data cards and internship positions for refugees.
- Bayer pledged to establishing apprenticeship opportunities.
- Bosch group pledged funding, refugee internships and land for construction of refugee centres.
- Sinofi pledged funding for partners supporting refugees.
- Man Group pledged funding for partners helping refugee children.
- Evonik Industries pledged funding toward vocational training and language proficiency.
- Tesco pledged funding for refugees through British Red Cross.
- Several universities and post graduate schools offered scholarships to post graduate refugees.
CORPORATE PROJECTS UNDERTAKEN WITH THE UNITED NATIONS
During this period, 36 corporate projects were posted on the UN site. The postings detail the project’s vision and objectives and, while each stands alone, they also invite other organisatons to partner or collaborate in the fulfilment of their objectives. The estimated expenditure for the year is over US$30 million. There is a massive range of projects and objectives, representing many sectors of society. Here is a sampling.
- Education for refugee children
- Monitoring health of coral reefs
- Midwife care to reduce maternal and neo natal deaths in Asia, Africa and Latin America
- Reduction of water losses in Brazil’s elimination system
- Elimination of sleeping sickness
- Broadening the use of sugar cane based plastics, reducing the need for fossil fuels
- Elimination of avoidable blindness through provision of affordable, subsidised surgical procedures or medical care
- Grain garnering partnership to scale up core value chain activities such as warehousing, production, and logistics, so empowering small volume maize farmers
在2015年中期，當世界各地對難民議題逐漸關注時，法國加來出現了一個名為「森林」的非官方營地，這頓時引起了大眾注意。縱使「森林」沒有妥當的設備和遮蔽處，它還是能夠急速發展並吸引大批人士搬來生活，當中有很多未成年的年輕人在沒有成人陪伴下獨自前來，亦有很多兒童處於嚴重脆弱的狀態。因著我們的環球援手網絡可以連結世界各地的人，當時有英國積極伸出援手，因此我們環球援手網絡的辦公室立時忙得不可開交，透過電話和電郵指導捐贈者如何作出幫忙，讓加來「森林」的難民得到合適援助。
福士汽車過去捐了兩部汽車給我們，分別是Caravelles和Polo車款，這對我們來說是很大的幫忙，因為從此我們的團隊就可以更快捷方便地到各區幫助。實在很感謝福士汽車沒有選擇把二手汽車賣掉，而願意捐贈給我們呢！
充滿創意的信息技術公司Qlik，為我們捐出數據分析和整理的技術，這種專業技術能自動以圖表整理不同方面的數據，讓我們能更清楚了解各系統狀況，從而提高管理力，這樣我們就可以有更多的時間和資源去為幫助有需要的人！
