What defines a sustainable business is its impact on the environment, how it treats its employees and community, and its profitability. People, planet, and profit are the commonly known criteria for defining sustainable operations. But how do you measure a business's sustainable actions and gauge the impact they have in each of these three categories?
A universal measuring stick comes in the form of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 goals comprise the blueprint of a sustainable world and served as the revised criteria for determining the recipients of SGIA's 2020 Sustainable Business Recognition Program.
Those seeking recognition aligned their efforts with one of three SDGs selected by SGIA’s Sustainability, Safety, Health and Personnel Advisory Council. Each goal is accompanied with targets, or quantifiable actions to be taken to achieve the overall goal. The Sustainable Business Recognition Program focused on certain targets to which the printing industry could most feasibly contribute. The SDGs and subsequent target topics chosen were:
SDG 3: Good Health and Well Being
Targets relating to preventing diseases, reducing illnesses from hazardous chemicals, and promoting mental health and well-being.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Targets relating to sustaining economic growth, achieving economic productivity through innovations, improving efficiency in consumption and production, equalizing pay, growing youth training or education programs, and decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.
SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production
Targets relating to managing sustainable materials, managing safe chemicals and waste, reducing waste generation, improving fuel efficiency, utilizing renewable energy, improving company procurement and overall transparency, and educating and encouraging others to be aware of and work toward sustainability.
Aligning the Sustainable Business Recognition Program with the SDGs allowed SGIA to accurately and effectively assess applicants on their sustainability efforts. Having straight-forward, concrete goals to guide actions and judge impacts provided a clear and consistent approach to evaluate each company’s sustainability program. While the SDGs may have been a new concept in which to categorize achievements for some companies, the increased familiarity with these goals provided more ideas and opportunities for growth.
The entries were evaluated against how well the project descriptions and metrics supported the respective SDGs. Entries were reviewed by the advisory council and awarded a Platinum, Gold, or Silver rating.
SGIA congratulates all of the 2020 Sustainable Business Recognition Award winners, particularly PRS Permacel Private Limited, the sole Platinum recipient. Located in Ambernath, Maharashtra, India, PRS Permacel Private Limited achieved the top honor because of their generous employee medical benefits, work-life balance practices, Young Achiever Award program, utility efficiencies and reuse of resources, and their Qualification and Work Experience Pay Grade Structure. You can read more about their efforts, and those of our Gold recipients in the most recent edition of the SGIA Journal.
Stay tuned for more posts in the coming weeks taking an in-depth look at these SDGs and the aligning actions of other program award recipients. Visit SGIA.org to see the full list of 2020 Sustainable Business Recognition Program winners, learn more about the program, and sign up to be notified when 2021 applications open!
Please also feel free to contact me with any questions about the program.