BSR | ADVANCING THE SDGs THROUGH COLLABORATION Introduction When the 17 Sustainable Development Drawing on BSR’s extensive expertise Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the in incubating, designing, and facilitating United Nations in 2015 as a global call collaborative initiatives, the purpose of this to action and universal roadmap to end report is to explore how business-led multi- global poverty and protect the planet, stakeholder collaboration can help to advance they promised to deliver a future in which the SDGs and contribute to poverty reduction. no one would be left behind by 2030. The report leverages concrete examples of collaborative initiatives incubated through Halfway to its deadline, progress on the 2030 the CoLab SDGs program, a partnership Agenda is weak and socioeconomic inequality with the Swedish International Development continues to grow. The UN predicts in its latest Cooperation Agency (Sida). progress report that at current rates, over half a billion people will still live in extreme poverty by 2030, and only around a third of nations How BSR de昀椀nes “business-led 1 will reduce national poverty levels by half. multi-stakeholder collaboration” These gloomy projections beg an important question: Who will step up to act on these BSR de昀椀nes business-led multi- global challenges? stakeholder collaborations as voluntary The answer to this question is re昀氀ected in the efforts that engage multiple participants SDGs themselves as well as represented in a primarily from the private sector in non- standalone goal, namely SDG 17—Partnerships commercial, pre-competitive collaboration for the Goals. To fully achieve the SDGs, the to achieve positive sustainable outcomes. world needs partnerships of unprecedented While the collaborations may include scale and ambition between the private sector, participants from civil society or the public governments, and civil society. sector—making them a multi-stakeholder Multi-stakeholder collaborations are already effort—business actors are the primary well established and a key part of the solution. decision-makers, and solutions developed or In fact, the SDG Actions Platform shows nearly identi昀椀ed in the collaborations leverage the 8,000 commitments and partnerships made by resources and assets of the private sector. stakeholders in support of the implementation of the SDGs2. 1 The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2023.pdf (un.org) 2 2 SDG Actions Platform | Department of Economic and Social Affairs (un.org)