17D thinking for responsible business: New vision for a new age

At Lloyds Bank­ing Group Cen­tre for Respon­si­ble Busi­ness we believe the Unit­ed Nation’s Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) are an aspi­ra­tional, hope-filled vision.

In 2015 world lead­ers agreed on 17 SDGs that rep­re­sent the achieve­ment of the UN’s ambi­tious strat­e­gy to end pover­ty, pro­tect the plan­et, and ensure all enjoy peace and pros­per­i­ty by 2030. How­ev­er, achiev­ing the SDGs will require new rela­tion­ships between gov­ern­ments, busi­ness­es, civ­il soci­ety and indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens.

The SDGs are game-chang­ers in terms of what it means to be a respon­si­ble busi­ness. They rede­fine the role of busi­ness in cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able world. SDGs pro­vide a vision that can mobilise busi­ness resources to secure their, and our, best pos­si­ble future; a future where respon­si­ble busi­ness­es flour­ish, pro­tect­ing the resources upon which they depend, cre­at­ing val­ue while sus­tain­ing  our plan­et.

This hope­ful vision stands in stark con­trast to our unsus­tain­able world, plagued with risks and uncer­tain­ties, grow­ing social injus­tice and  eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion.

SDGs help define what doing busi­ness respon­si­bly means, trans­lat­ing a fuzzy con­cept into 17 strate­gic goals and pri­or­i­ties, improve deci­sion-mak­ing, mea­sure progress and map out a more respon­si­ble future. The SDGs rede­fine suc­cess for all organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing busi­ness­es, and reset our moral com­pass  on what is val­ued, valu­able and social­ly accept­able.

Sup­port­ing busi­ness in this trans­for­ma­tion through research, engage­ment and edu­ca­tion is the core objec­tive of the Cen­tre for Respon­si­ble Busi­ness, formed from the shared val­ues of Lloyd Bank­ing Group and the Uni­ver­si­ty  of Birm­ing­ham.

Creating a 17D responsible  business toolkit

In his book Fact­ful­ness, Hans Rosling notes that if you give a child a ham­mer, the whole world becomes a nail. Sim­i­lar­ly if busi­ness­es only mea­sure their impact in terms of short-term prof­itabil­i­ty, the world is reduced to a set of prof­it pos­si­bil­i­ties.

As the SDGs become embed­ded with­in inter­na­tion­al trade agree­ments, finan­cial mar­kets, tax­a­tion sys­tems, pro­cure­ment and con­sumer pref­er­ences, what is con­sid­ered valu­able and val­ued will change. Demon­strat­ing busi­ness con­tri­bu­tions to SDGs will cre­ate com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, just as pre­vent­ing the attain­ment of SDGs will become less val­ued and sub­ject to grow­ing dis­trust and unac­cept­abil­i­ty.

Respon­si­ble busi­ness lead­ers now need to think dif­fer­ent­ly about what they do and how they do it.

The SDGs cre­ate a need for mul­ti­di­men­sion­al think­ing, think­ing that helps make sense of busi­ness with ref­er­ence to all 17 SDGs. This 17D think­ing involves con­sid­er­ing the impact of busi­ness deci­sions on each SDG, how much they depend on SDGs being met, as well as iden­ti­fy­ing cumu­la­tive ben­e­fits across all SDGs. 17D think­ing will expose the risks of act­ing irre­spon­si­bly and cre­ate new mea­sures of val­ue.

For exam­ple, a change in pro­cure­ment prac­tices that reduces pover­ty in your sup­ply chain is like­ly to have a pos­i­tive impact on hunger, health, decent work, edu­ca­tion and inequal­i­ties. If the same action is sus­tained over a peri­od of time, it may have a pos­i­tive impact on sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties, life on land, infra­struc­ture and inno­va­tion. This change also results in improved per­for­mance against the respon­si­ble pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion goal.

The val­ue of 17D think­ing becomes clear­er with ref­er­ence to an exam­ple, such as our three-step 17D SWOT analy­sis.

Step 1

Take each SDG and con­sid­er whether it is a strength, weak­ness, oppor­tu­ni­ty or threat. This will pro­vide an ini­tial 17D pic­ture of your busi­ness. This analy­sis can be applied to dif­fer­ent objects, for exam­ple busi­ness unit, depart­ment, prod­uct or ser­vice. In your analy­sis you should include sup­ply chains, busi­ness oper­a­tions, con­sump­tion of goods or ser­vices sold and  stake­hold­er engage­ments.

Step 2

Under­take a sep­a­rate SWOT analy­sis for each SDG. This can be inte­grat­ed with our 17D Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Chal­lenge Audit, which involves respond­ing to a series of prompts for each SDG. For exam­ple, list three things that con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly or may impact neg­a­tive­ly. Are we bet­ter or worse than our com­peti­tors? How do we mea­sure per­for­mance? Ide­al­ly what would we like to achieve? How could we make a small pos­i­tive change?

Step 3

Revis­it the ini­tial SWOT analy­sis. Cre­ate a Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Chal­lenge Map, list­ing key actions to address SWOTs, high­light­ing those with a sig­nif­i­cant impact on more than one SDG and deter­min­ing the rel­a­tive pri­or­i­ty of each SDG.

SDGs pro­vide a vision that can mobilise busi­ness resources to secure their best pos­si­ble future. Our research is cre­at­ing a port­fo­lio of 17D tools that enable respon­si­ble busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion

Never underestimate the cumulative impact of incremental change

Respon­si­ble busi­ness is an ongo­ing process shaped by chang­ing busi­ness risks and oppor­tu­ni­ties. 17D tools iden­ti­fy how each busi­ness is becom­ing respon­si­ble, how much fur­ther they can go, recog­nis­ing incre­men­tal changes against all SDGs while tak­ing into account their align­ment with strate­gic pri­or­i­ties.

A trans­par­ent approach should be adopt­ed to reward any pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion, enabling busi­ness­es to learn what works and build capac­i­ty for change. In par­tic­u­lar, 17D think­ing allows busi­ness­es to iden­ti­fy ini­tia­tives with the poten­tial to build over time and across the 17 dimen­sions; ini­tia­tives that cre­ate val­ue to the busi­ness, pro­tect the resources upon which busi­ness suc­cess depends and con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to as many SDGs as pos­si­ble.

Our research is cre­at­ing a port­fo­lio of 17D tools that enable respon­si­ble busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion. The Cen­tre for Respon­si­ble Busi­ness has sup­port­ed Busi­ness in the Com­mu­ni­ty to devel­op their Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Track­er. This com­pre­hen­sive tool eval­u­ates the respon­si­bil­i­ty of a busi­ness on mul­ti­ple dimen­sions. It tracks changes in  strat­e­gy, process­es, prod­ucts and impacts, pro­vides crit­i­cal gap analy­ses, and bench­marks. Busi­ness­es will receive guid­ance on how to achieve their poten­tial.

Our researchers are work­ing with busi­ness­es to cre­ate inno­v­a­tive SDG reports that pro­vide mul­ti­di­men­sion­al accounts of their activ­i­ties that enables key stake­hold­ers to learn about their achieve­ments and out­stand­ing chal­lenges. We have been invit­ed to engage with lead­ing inter­na­tion­al net­works in the design of respon­si­ble busi­ness account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms.

Birm­ing­ham Busi­ness School shares  our com­mit­ment to respon­si­ble busi­ness and is embed­ding ele­ments of 17D think­ing through­out  its edu­ca­tion­al pro­grammes, build­ing  the capac­i­ty of future lead­ers to ensure  long-term suc­cess by cre­at­ing val­ue respon­si­bly.

As a research cen­tre we are always look­ing for new part­ners to work with. If you are inter­est­ed in any of these ideas please vis­it www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/business/research/responsible-business/index.aspx