The Sustainable Development Goals and the Financial Services Industry

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed at the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, embrace an ambitious and wide-ranging set of global environmental, social and economic targets. They are chiefly designed to promote the transition to a more viable future. The United Nations called on all governments to pursue these ambitious goals but also acknowledged the important role of the business community in addressing the SDGs. The present report provides an outline of the SDGs and of the efforts being made to encourage business engagement. It also comments on the challenges the financial services industry potentially faces in attempting to contribute to the SDGs. It is suggested that leading financial services companies should be required to identify and measure their contributions to the SDGs, integrate their achievements into sustainability reporting processes and commission comprehensive external monitoring. Finally, fundamental concerns regarding the contradicting trends of sustainability and continuing economic growth are highlighted.