The Sustainable Development Goals provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership.
What about private companies? How do they get involved in the development goals? Can they even get involved?
Actually, yes. Through the Trade for Sustainable Development (T4SD). This is a partnership-based programme of the International Trade Centre (ITC), which helps businesses, regardless of their position in the value chain, chart their path to more sustainable trade by better understanding the sustainability initiatives landscape and to connect with business partners.
Trade for Sustainable Development (T4SD)
One of the initiatives of the ITC to work closely with companies is the Trade for Sustainable Development Principles. Is a partnership-based programme of ITC which helps businesses, regardless of their position in the value chain, chart their path to more sustainable trade by better understanding the sustainability initiatives landscape and to connect with business partners. These are a set of core values to support sustainable trade namely:
- Sustainability
- Transparency
- Harmonization
- Sustainable Development Goals
ITC
The ITC, a focal point for trade-related technical assistance, is a multilateral agency which has a joint mandate with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations (UN) through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
For a good and short overview of the ITC, check out this video on YouTube.
T4SD’s new platform and resources:
www.sustainabilitymap.org/standards
These Sustainability Standards enables users to analyse standards-related data and self-assess their sustainability-related performance. The site currently covers more than 220 standards initiatives applicable to more than 80 sectors and 180 countries.
www.sustainabilitymap.org/community
Also available at www.sustainabilityxchange.org, the Sustainability Community is focused on driving sustainable agricultural value chains and trade. It was designed to empower trainers, businesses, standards organizations, NGOs and governments.
www.sustainabilitymap.org/network
This virtual marketplace allows users to share their business and sustainability profiles with buyers, traders, standards organizations, certification bodies, financiers and others.
www.sustainabilitymap.org/trends
Sustainability Trends provides greater access to information on sustainable markets. Regularly updated, this component of Sustainability Map offers a comprehensive overview of production-related market information on some of the major sustainability-related standards.
Sources:
Trade for Sustainable Development, International Trade Centre,
Video:
ITC corporate video: What is ITC?, International Trade Centre YouTube Channel
Image:
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