To assist businesses in responding to the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and more effectively identifying key areas for development, PwC Taiwan and the Taiwan Business Sustainability Training Center jointly hosted the "Discovering Corporate Sustainability in the SDGs" forum on November 22, 2017. The forum released the "PwC Global SDG Reporting Challenge 2017" and invited Chien Yu-Hsin, Chairman of the Taiwan Business Sustainability Training Center, and Mr. Hans Schoolderman, Partner of PwC Netherlands Sustainability, to analyze strategies and solutions for businesses developing SDGs. Representatives from companies such as Sinyi Realty, Cathay Financial Holdings, Far EasTone Telecommunications, and Unilever also shared their experiences, aiming to help businesses gain a head start in formulating and developing their SDGs action capabilities. According to statistics, 43 countries worldwide submitted Voluntary Country Review Reports (VNRs) for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2017, and more countries are expected to submit VNRs in 2018, which will inevitably have a policy impact on business activities in the future. This year, PwC conducted the "PwC Global SDG Reporting Challenge 2017" specifically to investigate how businesses are responding to the SDGs. According to the latest research results, 62% of companies are reporting the SDGs to stakeholders, higher than expected; among them, 37% of companies choose to report using a ranking method, and 25% of companies, while mentioning the SDGs, did not select priority implementation areas. Furthermore, the most frequently responded-to SDGs are "Target 13: Climate Change," "Target 8: Employment, Environment and Economy," and "Target 12: Responsible Consumption and Production"; while the least responded-to targets are "Target 2: Ending Hunger," "Target 1: Ending Poverty," and "Target 14: Marine Ecology." However, the SDGs that businesses rank highly on are inconsistent with those ranked by the general public and those that are national priorities, which warrants attention. Mr. Hans Schoolderman, Partner of Sustainability at PwC Netherlands, stated that after the UN adopted the SDGs, PwC Netherlands immediately launched an SDG reporting challenge survey for its domestic companies in 2016. At that time, it was found that integrating core corporate strategies with the SDGs required strong leadership. While 44% of companies had made commitments to the SDGs, they still faced many obstacles in linking the SDGs to action or reporting. This year's expanded global SDG survey, focusing on companies that report on the SDGs, further analyzed the quality and performance indicators they disclosed. It found that 70% of companies responded to at least one SDG indicator in their reports. Among the performance indicators disclosed, greenhouse gas reduction, waste reduction, and energy efficiency were the most frequently disclosed, mainly because these indicators are easily quantifiable, companies have years of reporting experience, and most governments have enacted relevant legislation, demonstrating that policy and legislation are quite helpful in achieving sustainable development goals. Based on the results of PwC's global survey, Yi-Hua Li, a sustainability consultant at PwC Taiwan, suggests that companies consider the following three principles when responding to the SDGs: 1. Prioritize sustainability goals: Focus on sustainability goals related to significant company issues and extend this to value chain impacts. These issues are most closely related to company operations, helping companies concentrate resources. 2. Set quantifiable targets: By setting actionable targets and selecting quantitative indicators (based on scientific methods whenever possible), integrate sustainability goals into strategy and product development processes. This serves as a tangible contribution to the company's efforts towards sustainability goals. 3. Understand the objectives behind sustainability goals: Each sustainability goal comprises a series of interconnected sub-goals that interact with each other. Companies should comprehensively analyze the impact of all 169 sub-goals on the company, avoiding focusing only on the 17 key goals while overlooking the impact of other sub-goals on the company's future. Taiwan formally established the "Legislative Yuan UN Sustainable Development Advisory Committee" in September of this year, with the primary goal of overseeing the Executive Yuan's implementation of concrete policy measures aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Executive Yuan's National Sustainable Development Council formally submitted a draft of Taiwan's Sustainable Development Goals in October. Lee Yi-huah stated that more SDG-related policies and laws are expected to be promulgated in the future, impacting business activities. Enterprises should not only closely monitor increasingly stringent sustainable development standards but also strengthen their responsiveness to the national development priorities outlined in the SDGs. Source: CSRone Sustainability Reporting Platform (2017-11-23)
