United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a global framework of seventeen goals adopted in 2015 with a 2030 horizon. Nothing in them binds an Australian business directly.

They become practically useful where they overlap with obligations that do bind you.

Decent work and economic growth sits alongside wage compliance and work health and safety duties. Gender equality sits alongside discrimination law and, for larger employers, reporting obligations. Responsible consumption and production sits alongside modern slavery reporting for entities above the threshold. Climate action sits alongside sustainability reporting for entities in scope.

Working from that overlap avoids the common failure, which is a goals statement produced by one team that has no connection at all to the evidence another team is already collecting for a different purpose.

The Australian Modern Slavery Register covers supply chain reporting. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s SDGs awareness course and GRC system.