Sustainability starts in the boardroom

“As we strive to recover better, we must steer our world onto a more sustainable and inclusive path that tackles climate change, protects the environment, reverses biodiversity loss and ensures the long-term health and security of humankind.” Antonio Guterrez, UN Secretary-General (annual report United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Today, as never before, we need to step up action to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, who outline the objectives for a safe and sustainable future by 2030. Long before the current pandemic turned life, sustainability and long-term value creation were becoming urgent topics on the board agenda. Priorities due to the economic lockdown may have actually shifted, but the state of the urgency remains unchanged. Next year (2021) the EU Taxonomy will be introduced as an important reporting instrument so every company should develop a systematic approach to identify, implement, communicate, measure and report on their progress on SDG’s. This has 3 major consequences for board directors. First, board drectors should be able to understand how the SDG issue will impact the role and the composition of the board , as well as the work processes. Second, boards should make sure that SDG as a fundamental issue is fully integrated in the strategy. Third, boards are responsible to provide a report in an integrated and understandable way. Again, this must remain a priority because 2030…is already tomorrow.