Companies and components, compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Although the 2030 Agenda indicates what will be the important actions for humanity, oriented towards the common good and prosperity, making appropriate use of resources, in search of a more inclusive planet, looking at the good life of the following generations, we ask ourselves: What is the role of companies and their components in this 21st century to achieve a better world?

Giving continuity to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) whose validity was between the year 2000 and 2015, as we well know, on September 27, 2015, the Post-2015 Development Agenda was approved by the 193 countries that make up the United Nations (UN), including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which includes 17 SDGs and 169 goals. specific, what we today call Agenda 2030.

Before talking about the involvement of companies in their participation in the 2030 Agenda and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we highlight, as Ramírez and Herrera (2023) point out, the various approaches to the concept of sustainability, where they recapitulate some evidence and arguments of the importance of sustainability for human beings and the crisis of our civilization due to modernity. The first is related to the number of human beings and their consumerist lifestyle, which demand a large number of products and services from global ecosystems. The second evidence is climate change, derived from the accelerated warming of the planet. Third, is the degradation of natural resources. The fourth piece of evidence is the irremediable loss of biodiversity and, finally, the degree of poverty and inequality.

Now, if companies have to consider Corporate Social Responsibility within their policies, we emphasize that this concept is not new, since since 1953, Bowen questioned what the responsibility of businessmen was to society. While it is true that it is generally contemplated in large companies, it is worth mentioning that the vast majority of economic units worldwide and in Latin America are micro, small and medium-sized. Therefore, this type of economic units must visualize the social, economic and environmental effects when carrying out their activities, always based on ethical attitudes based on values, the internal and external components of the organization and the environment.

So what is the challenge of sustainability in the company of the future? As García de la Torre (2019) points out, the sustainability of companies must be at the core of the business (activity and essence of the business), which allows generating positive impacts, viewing the company as an actor that promotes a true economic, social and environmental impact. To do this, it is necessary for the company to consider each internal and external component: shareholders, managers, workers, suppliers, clients and society/State, involved in the company system, to visualize what their contributions and compensations are and, from this, determine the vision of the company (Peiró, 2000).

As Peiró (2000) mentions, it is important that each of the components of the company are visualized within its facets within a system with a global character, highlighting its “Hard” facets: infrastructure and economic resources, organizational structure, technology and work systems; and its “Soft” facets: climate and culture, human resources management policies and practices, management, human capital (people and teams). In addition to considering the company's strategy, the vision, mission, services and products and the psychological contract.

Companies must reflect in their vision on the approach they will give to sustainability, considering an orthodox approach, which considers the environmental and circular economy as proposals, understanding that sustainability is a process of balance between the social, economic and ecological dimensions, governed under the free market; a heterodox approach (internal criticism), considering that sustainability is a process that implies adaptability, resilience and innovation to change; or an alternative sustainability approach (external criticism), which contemplates a Social Solidarity Economy, an Economy of Care, a Political Economy of Liberation or an Economy for Life (Ramírez and Herrera, 2023).

It is the responsibility of companies and their components to adhere to the 2030 Agenda and contribute to this great challenge, which involves citizens, unions, educational institutions and federal, state and municipal governments as a whole. Recognize that the interest groups with which companies are related decisively influence the actions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), since the satisfaction of the demands of the interest groups involved is decisive for the very survival of the company.