17 ways your team can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals

As a social enterprise, we love to support the sustainable development goals as they recognise that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequalities, and encouraging economic growth. These global goals involve individuals, civil society and of course businesses. No matter the size of your company, you can still contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It starts with carrying out business responsibly and then pursuing social missions and tackling social issues. It can also be a great way to form team activities that make a difference and give yourself a challenge.

1. You can help support the first Sustainable Development Goal of no poverty by buying sustainable corporate gifts, merchandise, food and drink, and other supplies from companies such as social enterprises. For example, a Social Stories Club sustainable corporate gift box is filled with products that alleviate poverty in Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Asia. Other social enterprises such as Hey Girls are fighting poverty in Scotland and have donated over 13 million period products to girls in Scotland preventing period poverty one tampon at a time. 
2. You can contribute to the second Sustainable Development Goal by challenging your company to take part in the Zero Hunger Challenge. This challenge will help the UN to reach the goal of no global hunger by 2030 and you will be helping them to find real-world solutions!
3. Enforce health and wellbeing at your workplaces such as yoga classes, mental health training, and non-work-related group tasks! This will not only keep your team well and active, but it will also increase their working capacity and happiness! 
4. You can support quality education by creating opportunities for adults, children, and youths to find work pathways. This could be through an apprenticeship programme, sponsored university places, internships, training programmes for adults that have maybe been made redundant, and school trips to your workplace so that children can see all types of jobs available to them. There are many initiatives that support education in developing countries, such as the Tea People who feature in our gift boxes and the Dalit Candles who both provide children with education!
5. Goal five is ensuring gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Your work can start by implementing a non-discrimination and sexual harassment policy. You could also have a board that convenes and discusses gender equality in the workplace and oversees part of promotions and hiring to ensure that everyone is given a fair chance. Instilling a workplace culture of everyone is equal will help the company function better and bring teams closer together. For more information, check out the Women’s Empowerment Principles.
6. To support goal six, you can sign the WASH pledge! This means your business commits to providing safe water, sanitation and hygiene at the workplace! There are social enterprises that support goal six as well - Brewgooder, who are on their path to provide clean water to 1 million people, powered by their beer. 
7. For goal seven, your company could switch to a green energy supplier and try to have more of a carbon-neutral footprint. By using renewable energy, you are not only creating jobs for people in these sectors but are also helping emit less CO2. 
8. Sustainable Development Goal eight for decent work and economic growth can be fulfilled by providing training opportunities for your staff to always improve their knowledge, intrapreneurship programmes, a set corporate culture commitment, and instilling labour rights and principles. This will not only help your company keep to a set of protocols, but it will also improve the business culture of your staff.
9. To support achieving goal nine in your business you can invest sustainably in your business. This can be aided by the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. 
10. In order to reduce inequalities (UN Sustainable Development Goal 10), you can ensure human right principles are enforced in your workplace. Many organisations pay the living wage, in line with the Living Wage Foundation. 
11. In order to make your city and country sustainable (Goal 11), you can encourage your staff to use public transport, use E-transport, try car-sharing, and even plant a city garden in your company. Moreover, try to make your office as accessible as possible for your employees and for some that are maybe struggling to make working from home an option too! This will reduce the carbon footprint of your company and can even bring a community of people together that like growing food and plants. Employees are five times more likely to bike to work if showers are provided.
12. To help reduce consumption and production, try to use a recycling or linear ecosystem in your waste management. Not only could this save your company money, but it will also help the environment. You can also encourage positive consumption and production by looking at your supply chain and seeing if you can purchase from a social enterprise instead. We are Social Stories Club so if you are looking for a social enterprise gift box, we have got you covered. Head over to our impact report to discover other social enterprises.  
13. Goal 13 is about taking climate action. This is a goal that can be aided by many of the other goals such as reducing your carbon footprint. But, it is also not always enough! By sharing details on climate action, such as a blog post and educating your staff on what they can do to help the climate, you can make a significant change! Banning single-use plastics in your work place and encouraging reusables are some small steps you can take to become more eco friendly. 
14. Goal 14 is all about preserving life below water! This means sustainably using the ocean and its resources. If you are a company that makes products, have you thought about switching to using recycled ocean plastic? If you are looking for a charitable project to invest in, you can buy coral reefs that are planted and grow to help ecosystem underwater survive. Social enterprises such as Ocean Bottle help remove plastic bottles that have been thrown into the ocean. 
15. Goal 15 is one that is very easy to support. You and your staff can plant trees every day with the click of a button - Ecosia, a search engine. Every time you search on Ecosia, you help plant a tree and get your search results instantaneously. 
16. Goal 16 is all about good corporate governance. This will not only instil more trust between staff and directors, but will also help your company resolve issues as it provides peaceful and inclusive societies. Providing training for senior management and having an unbiased tribunal to deal with serious company issues will promote a peaceful and inclusive workplace.
17. Goal 17 is all about making partnerships to improve the impact of sustainable development goals. This will allow your team to connect with others across different sectors and provide sustainable solutions together, while allowing you to create even more social impact! 

We hope you found this blog on the Sustainable Development Goals informative! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at info@socialstoriesclub.com. We make sustainable gift boxes and we are a registered social enterprise. Every product in our gift boxes has a fascinating story of social impact. We are on a mission to spread the word about social enterprises one gift box at a time.

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