ESADE is the only business school selected to participate in a new high-level multi-stakeholder platform created by the European Commission. Led by Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission, the platform will provide support and advice on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda within the European Union. The 30 members of the platform met for the first time yesterday at the EU’s executive offices in Brussels. Participants include Transparency International, Unilever, the World Wildlife Fund, BirdLife, BusinessEurope; various companies; professional, commercial and business associations; trade unions; NGOs; EU bodies; international and intergovernmental organisations; and representatives of interest groups.

Contributing to a sustainable future

“The 2030 Agenda is ambitious,” explained Dr. Eva Jané-Llopis, Director of Health, SDGs and Social Innovation at ESADE, who is a member in the High-Level Platform. “The 17 SDGs are divided into 169 targets, which cover major global challenges such as eradicating extreme poverty, ending hunger and tackling major epidemics like HIV. Collaboration between the public and private sectors and civil society is essential in order to achieve these objectives. Useful, transparent interaction between multiple stakeholders creates the necessary trust for them to work together and support the mobilisation of new resources to achieve these goals”. “We have some evidence about what can be done to achieve the SDGs,” noted Dr. Jané-Llopis. “However, we must find a way to ensure that policies and actions reach all citizens by deepening our understanding of scalability and identifying new financing models.”

“ESADE is an academic institution that stands at the intersection of the business world and society,” Dr. Jané-Llopis added. “Therefore, it is exceptionally well positioned and has the necessary knowledge to facilitate interaction and collaboration between the public and private sectors.” Dr. Jané-Llopis highlighted that ESADE’s role in the platform is also to “contribute through research and development of dissemination models, indicators and success stories in order to shape the agenda and monitor its progress”, as well as “encouraging multi-stakeholder and social debate through events–such as the Annual Conference of ESADE’s Institute for Social Innovation, which this year will focus on how to increase social impact for the SDGs–.” Finally, ESADE’s mission is also “to provide knowledge and tools to strengthen implementation capacities, and raise awareness through our Executive Education programmes among new generations of business leaders about how to change business models in order to build a better world.”

“In order to build a sustainable future for Europe we need to work from the grassroots up, and use the knowledge and skills of a wide range of stakeholders”, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said, when announcing the members of the Platform in October 2017. “I am looking forward to working closely together with the experts in this Platform to develop the vision and the tools we need to succeed in delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals", he noted.

Picture caption: General view of the meeting. Meeting of the Multi-Stakeholder Platform of the Implementation of the SDGs in the EU. © European Union, 2018 / Source: EC - Audiovisual Service / Photo: Lukasz Kobus.