Article in JIBP: Multinational enterprises and the Sustainable Development Goals

Which Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do the world’s largest companies engage with? And why do they focus on these particular SDGs? Our colleague Jan Anton van Zanten, together with Prof. Rob van Tulder, studied these questions in a newly published scientific paper in the Journal of International Business Policy. They find that multinational companies engage more with SDG targets that (i) are actionable within their (value chain) operations rather than those outside of it; and (ii) aim to “avoid harm” rather than “do good”.

“Avoiding harm” in the value chain is critical for sustainable development. But to take their contributions to the SDGs to the next level – and increasingly move towards achieving SDGs that intend to “do good” in the broader society – additional efforts have to be made. The paper argues that cross-sector partnerships provide a promising opportunity to realise this ambition. At Steward Redqueen we want to help companies move to this next level, and make business work for society.

Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-018-0008-x