Global Goals That Work

The Opportunity

In market terms, the SDGs represent a host of opportunities. As global and national policies develop to meet the SDGs so new markets will emerge: 20 million electric vehicles are expected to be on the road by 2020 (SDG 13 on climate change); Asia's 'Base of the Pyramid' has an aggregate income of $3.47 trillion (SDG 10 on Inequality). The 17 SDGs are an 'innovation map' for what the world needs.

But the SDG framework offers a much bigger opportunity to understand human progress from market value alone – it provides a dashboard of indicators to monitor the macro trends, opportunities, and risks that face our global systems. Our economies are more interconnected than ever before – mortgage defaults in Florida can result in a global financial crash; floods in Thailand can mean job losses in the UK. If the SDG framework can be made relevant and applicable at different levels of operation – global, national, corporate, local – then it can become a powerful strategic tool for identifying the connections between these compounding risks and opportunities.