Problem and Needs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations are likely not met by the target year 2030, if companies do not recognize and utilize the business opportunities inherent in them. 380 million jobs would be created and €10 trillion in business opportunities would be unlocked if SDGs were realized by 2030. At the moment, companies are not able to utilize this growth potential and higher educational institutions (HEIs) do not adequately support the competence building of future managers and policy makers for solving the world’s most urgent problems. Current training efforts of SDGs focus on awareness building only, not business opportunity recognition and economic development related to SDGs. Thus, an innovative and scalable curriculum and training material is needed.

Solution and Outcome

Knowledge Alliance for Business Opportunities in SDGs (SDG4BIZ) creates, tests and disseminates a curriculum and training material on recognizing and realizing the business opportunities in SDGs. An innovative pedagogical solution is created targeting both European HEIs and companies and delivered via project partners’ viable learning platform. The training addresses 60 most relevant business opportunities inherent in SDGs with 5 Modules: 1) shared value business opportunity recognition & specific opportunities in 2) food and agriculture, 3) cities, 4) energy and materials & 5) health and wellbeing.

Impact

The level of curriculum adoption and actual business opportunity recognition and realization are readily available after the project via learning platform capable of advanced data analytics. During this project (until 2023), 80% of teaching staff of Partner HEI’s (4) (1500 teachers) have been trained and impact has been measured. 30% (600) of teachers have integrated SDG business potential in their teaching. 115 companies have trained their staff (80 000) and 60% (48 000) of staff have taken the training knowhow for process and product development.

Sustainability and scalability
By 2027, as a result of realizing these opportunities, the companies create new business focusing on SDGs and become more competitive. The curriculum will be used by 200-500 of HEIs and 2000-5000 of European companies, enhancing business growth. Sustainability is ensured by continued availability of the training material, integration into curricula and promotion of public-private cooperation with SMEs and academic publications. The world will be closer to reaching the SDGs by 2030.