Risk and SDGs

Businesses are recognized as critical agents with the potential to advance global sustainability under each of the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Literature has examined the variety of implementation strategies to embed the framework of the SDGs into corporate practices and how companies can make the best use of the SDGs to be truly sustainable development agents. Furthermore, over the last decades, the consideration of sustainability risks has been playing an increasingly important role for companies. At the same time, capital markets, investors, and regulators, as well as stakeholders in general, are showing greater interest to understand how organizations are identifying and responding to sustainability risks. Existing sustainability reporting frameworks and guidelines requires companies to disclose not only their current or past performance on sustainability issues but also how sustainability risks are identified and managed. Therefore, advancing a framework and building the capacity to foster sustainability-conscious enterprise risk management is a critical step toward building the long-term prosperity of companies and the societies on which they depend. This chapter analyses how the SDGs can support Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), providing a complementary perspective to support companies in identifying and managing sustainability risks.