Employees’ and suppliers’ awareness, transparency and networking are some of the areas that are essential to work on.
Siding the business strategy with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) not only backs a concept of progress sustained in time, but it also has a positive and direct impact on the profitability of the Basque companies. This was evinced on 15 February at the “SDGs and businesses, tendencies and opportunities” conference, organised by the Basque Government, the innovation agency Innobasque and the Spanish Network of the Global Compact, entity dependant on the United Nations to promote the SDGs in the private sector. In this conference, representatives from public institutions and spokespersons from Basque companies evaluated the work that is being carried out in this matter.
More and more companies are taking actions within the 2030 Agenda regarding sustainability. This issue is very present in the Basque Country, where 117 organisations have already signed the UN Global Compact. This represents the 4.5% of all the companies. This means that they integrate actions regarding human rights, jobs, environment and anticorruption and they introduce strategies aligned with the SDGs.
Various companies have taken a step forward to explain how they have been working in this matter. Between these companies, A&B Laboratorios de Biotecnología was present, with its representative, Jon Kepa Izaguirre, management and innovation director. He explained that the SDGs are a reference framework for the companies and transferable to the daily work of the company. “In fact, 5 out of our 7 strategic lines are aligned with them”, he stated.
The conference was part of the “Agenda Euskadi Basque Country 2030”.