Giving Compass' Take:

• The Global SDG Awards serve as inspiration for more companies to execute targeted sustainability initiatives directed at accomplishing the SDGs. 

• How will competition help drive innovation and hopefully a sustainable future?

• Read about how the company Audible successfully implements CSR initiatives. 

We live in the Fourth Industrial Revolution — an era with unprecedented technological advancement.  But this revolution has also come at a time with serious global ecological and social challenges.

Thankfully, companies all around the world are committing themselves to finding innovative, profitable solutions to these problems.

Armed with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), businesses from across the globe are leading the way to a more sustainable future. The SDGs are becoming a common language for describing new sustainable market opportunities and corporate responsibility efforts. Many companies working toward the SDGs are not household names yet — but they deserve to be recognized for their efforts and incredible positive impacts.

The Global SDG Awards were recently launched to support this new era of leadership in sustainability and corporate responsibility. By driving private sector SDG engagement through competition, the organization hopes to create a race to the top and to inspire others with examples of sustainability leadership.

Large companies are also demonstrating SDG leadership by using the framework to describe current and planned corporate responsibility efforts. In response to a 2015 video of a sea turtle with a straw lodged in its nose, Starbucks recently pledged to remove plastic straw use from its stores by 2020. Similarly, McDonald’s is replacing plastic straws with paper ones in the UK and Ireland, and is considering alternatives for its stores in other parts of the world. These efforts directly support targets associated with Goal 14 — Life Under Water.

Companies from across countries and sectors can now compete for 17 annual Global SDG Awards. The awards will shine a spotlight on what is possible — private sector solutions that are creating a better future for each and every one of us.

Read the full article about global SDG awards by David A. Klar at Global Citizen