Business can and should primarily contribute to the sustainable development goals.
Business can and should primarily contributed to the targets set by world leaders to make the world a better place by the year 2030. Businesses are the core of development are depend among by governments, individuals and should aim at promoting peace, encouraging inclusiveness and environmental security (Murray, 2015).
A big challenge that the business is facing is the lack of a standard measure of reporting business progress and the impacts that they have on the sustainable development goals. The lack of the methodology by which the companies are to report on the progress and effects prevents the companies and other business from sharing vital information hence not promoting innovation, strategic governance and accelerated progress towards the goals (Hajer et al., 2015).
In which ways Businesses can contribute to the achievement of the sustainable goals for development?
Can businesses assist in the eradication of poverty through payment of taxes?
Real life challenges and solution.
Many business are avoid paying taxes which is the source of revenue for many nations, so as to cut don their expenditure. The businesses do these through depreciating their assets. Example is the Vodafone company in the UK which accelerated the depreciation of its equipment hence the costs was high and it declared to have made a loss of 468 million euros in 2010 while its sales were at 16.7 billion Euros thus resulting in the company not paying taxes as required, (Thornicroft, & Patel, 2014). Businesses should put up policies with their governments in monitoring their profits to avoid such scenarios from taking place and therefore fund the government to eradicate poverty.
Majority of the businesses are greedy and tend to extort the poor more than the other social classes in the society. A good example is the poor community in Mumbai India, Vodafone Company provides the mobile network at a higher price than in other economically stable areas in India in that a 2 minute phone call is twice the price in the Mumbai slum unlike in other areas where the middle class and rich are located. Same goes to the Sharma water supply company and diarrhea vendors in Mumbai sell their commodities at 37 times and 10 times respectively more expensive than they sell to the middle class individuals in the community (Costanza et al., 2016). These scheme of extortion and exploitation has drug the target of the SDGs for eradication of poverty. Businesses should be supported to start local production efficiently in order to cut the cost of transportation and tax also the government should establish ecosystems that enable the poor to take steps in changing their lives and becoming better every day such as Patromonio Hoy which helps the poor to build houses in Mexico. These will enable the businesses to fight against poverty and eradicate it completely.
Can the lack of knowledge by the workers on proper diets and nutrition cause poor health lifestyle?
Real life challenges and solution.
The lack of knowledge on the proper diets causes poor lifestyle. Adverts by some business cause a poor lifestyle as the individuals will by the unhealthy foodstuffs (Keesstra et al., 2016). A good example is the Nestle Company, which in the past several years has been producing unhealthy products to the society. In 2014 after the realization that the American community were shifting the consumption of commodities to healthy commodities they reformulated their products by removing artificial flavors (Buse & Hawkes 2015). Nestle company is adding nutrients into its products to provide healthy foodstuffs to its consumers. Other companies are currently adopting these to ensure the achievement of the SDGs.
Also businesses have put all efforts in advertisement of their products to influence the young once to consume their products. Example in the USA food advertisement industry is the second biggest industry after the automobile sector (Schmidt, Gostin, & Emanuel, 2015). Big businesses such a as the Pepsi company have taken advantage of the marketing plan through television advertisement which is had to regulate to advertise their products to children. This has had a great impact as Pepsi has been able to influence the youth to consume their product which is quite no health to the human body. The sodas have been known to cause obesity to the teens and also the adults who continue to consume the product. Companies such as Pepsi should be regulated to inform the public of the defects that their food products may cause, therefore enabling parents and the children to get the idea that the products are not healthy for regular consumption.
Can businesses lack innovation and creativity?
Real life challenges and solution.
Plenty of the businesses major on ensuring that the profit is maximized and not flexible to new ideas. This hinders creativity in many businesses as monotony is promoted, which does not promote creativity and innovation. Example is Coca Cola Company had stuck with its recipes and did not put efforts improve them. Recently the Company has diversified its operations and has embraced new ideas and is now producing bottled water and other products with the same taste but different color. For example in China the Coca Cola beverage product is colorless unlike in the rest of the world. These is promoting innovation and motivating other small businesses to do so thus the achievement of the innovation and creativity SDGs (WHO & Mathers, 2017).
Blockbuster Company is also an example of a company that has not promoted innovation and creativity leading to its consistent failures. The company as one of the greatest iconic video companies of all time. It started in 1985 and by1995 it was booming because it had monopoly in the sector. In 2004 it had the opportunity to purchase Netflix and add creativity to its on labor but the management at that time did not see the potential (Waage et al., 2015). Due to these the company did not promote creativity within its environment for the production of new videos and games and these led to its continued businesses failure. Netflix which however, which has been supportive towards creativity and embraced different ideas that have been presented to it has boomed in the market and is still promoting innovation and creativity which is a target of the SDG.
Can businesses promote quality education through job promotions without biasness?
Real life Challenges and solution.
Most businesses are family based and plenty of the workers that get the opportunity to promoted and control the business. Example is the World Wrestling Entertainment is family based and the family members are always in control. Businesses should open opportunities to each and every individual who is qualified for the chance therefore encouraging the experts to add more education on their profession in order to qualify for the promotions. Example Safaricom limited company in Kenya has gone beyond that and is becoming one of the best network provider in the world. The promotion of qualified individuals from different parts of the world has pushed for the desire of many individuals to seek quality education that will enable them acquire job opportunity in that company and many others that use the same criteria to employ(Lu et al., 2014).
As businesses such as Platinum Credit Limited which is a microfinance hence requires well educated individuals to work for them. These company has highly discouraged its employees from further studies as the businesses is paid through commission of the amount one has been able to lend the clients. The amount earned by such a profession who has invested in education to ensure that he gets a job is mere income compared to the less educated who engage themselves in the sports industry (Tangcharoensathien, Mills, & Palu, 2015). These highly demoralizes the desire to pursue further education. The businesses should be dedicated to give incentives to its labor force and even encourage them through scholarship and promotions to pursue further education (Griggs et al., 2014).
Can businesses promote gender equality via unbiased job opportunities?
Challenges and solutions.
The female gender does no receive the respect they require especially in the developing countries. The mentality that the female gender can do only the social studies (Fukuda-Parr, 2016). Example in Kenya a developing country the female main role is to cook and get married and cannot pursue education according to their cultures. Companies such as Facebook has proven that even with women leadership the companies that major in the IT sector can still thrive. Sheryl Sandberg has shown that (Liu et al., 2016). This comes as motivation and presenting the essence that it is possible and that businesses should promote the female gender by giving them scholarships to pursue technical studies and also equal opportunities to get promotions.
The Kenya Airport had several scandals of firing female workers when they becoming pregnant instead of giving them maternal leave (Hajer et al., 2015). There has been raised several time also but individuals are only compensated through money. Businesses should ensure that policies to protect equality especially of the female gender is given keen interest businesses should also ensure that the workers under their wing are under their various labor commission which will protect them and enable the businesses to promote gender equality as a target for SDGs (Thornicroft, & Patel, 2014).
Can the businesses invest in clean and reliable energy?
Real life Challenges and solutions.
Most businesses invest on non-renewable energy because it is less expensive to set up and efficient unlike clean energy which is quite expensive to set up (Costanza, Fioramonti & Kubiszewski 2016). Companies should push their investment and support Companies such as Kengen in Kenya have fought against the odds and are highly investing on clean and reliable energy, the company is supplying the renewable energy and therefore majority of the businesses that depend on energy are now using clean energy to operate which has pushed and is still pushing other businesses to adopt the use of renewable energy in their operation hence a great contribution in the achievement of the SDGs clean energy goals (Robert et al., 2015).
BP Oil Company has long served in the energy sector as it was one of the major suppliers of oil products worldwide. It had majored on the oil products which produced high volumes of pollution during refiner and even during the consumption of the commodities which was not environmental friendly (Griggs, et al., 2014). The new step that they have taken had have targeted investing in clean and renewable which is efficient and environmentally friendly has proven that companies can invest in renewable energy and find the energy sufficient and reliable (Murray, 2015). These has pushed many businesses towards accomplishing the SDGs goal as they are loyal customers to BP Oil Company.
Can the businesses promote decent jobs in the societies that they have established the businesses?
Real life challenges and solutions.
Every businesses has its interests put first before other policies. It has the obligation to meet its own objectives before engaging in the other objectives (Ford, 2015). Example the Sportpesa Company promotes the youths by preparing tournaments and selling the sports men agenda to the world, this promote the growth of sports which has created job opportunities to the youths thus enabling other businesses to be engaged and promote the achievement of the Decent job goal of the SDGs.
Majority of the businesses such as Geopoll Company require plenty of human resource labor from time to time assist them in undertaking various research that they require. They however, lack the platform to reach out to the jobless and qualified individuals. LinkedIn however has revolutionized that and in solving the problem partly as it is giving the qualified individuals the platform to get the jobs and know the available jobs that meet their qualifications. Tis has proved to be a big step in ensuring that the unrepresented in the society are able to get decent jobs.
Do businesses criticize the sustainable development goals?
Businesses have opposing views that have been raised over the years about the SDGs and they include;
Conclusion
It is quite clear that businesses may make or break the SDGs according to the means by which they decide to align themselves. Therefore keeping that in mind, the support from business to achieve the Goals is quite desired and needed (Le Blanc, 2015). Governments should have the understanding that business are the core of the development structure and should formulate policies that will ensure success of the business as they will be the source of income (Mbow, Noordwijk, Prabhu, & Simons, 2014). Also on the other hand Governments should highly consider also engaging in business promoting new businesses and investments that will enable them fund activities that will push for the targets of the SDGs which will highly propel them towards achieving the goals.
References
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