Opening Remarks UN Resident Coordinator on SDG Reporting Seminar

Pak Bambang Broedjonegoro, Minister, Bappenas

Ambassador Kurt Kunz, Embassy of Switzerland

Ms. Kirsten Bishop, Counsellor for Poverty and Social Development, Australian Embassy

Pak  Franciscus Welirang, Filantropi Business Indonesia for SDGs

Members of the UN family and,



Dear Participants



Selamat Pagi





I thank you for inviting me to offer some remarks at today’s seminar on Business Reporting for the SDGs. Pleasure to be back at the Stock Exchange.



Let me begin by saying that we face multiple challenges across the development spectrum and that the clock is ticking.



Climate change is ravaging the planet -- with a particularly brutal impact on many of the world’s most vulnerable people, communities and nations.

 

Staggering numbers of children and youth -- especially girls and young women -- still lack access to basic education and healthcare services.

 

People in many countries are starved of economic opportunities, decent work and social protection measures.

 

And, around the world, inequalities deepening and fraying the fabric of peaceful societies.

 

Our task is immense, but many of the pathways to change are in plain sight and success is still possible.



Globally, it is estimated that the financing gap for achieving the SDGs is the US$2.5 trillion annually. With just over a decade left to achieve the SDGs, closing that gap is a top priority. 



And that success will very depend on partnerships with a wide range of actors, the public sector, the private sector, civil society and others in achieving progress across the full spectrum of the 2030 Agenda.

 

At no time in the history of commerce has the private sector played such a clear and crucial role in achieving both lasting social, economic and environmental such a large scale. By the end of the SDGs in 2030, we believe that some of our best enterprises will be those who can address our most pressing global challenges today and through the most inventing and inspiring ways.



Investments in cross-cutting, high-return priorities have strong potential to unlock progress across multiple SDGs.



Achieving the SDGs can present great business opportunities, but the opposite is also true. Not reaching those Goals can have major negative consequences for companies and their finances and, therefore, for investor financial returns.

Therefore, investors need to know the positive and negative effects that a business has on contributing to the SDG targets This data must be credible, of high quality and built on a stakeholder dialogue.

Efforts to document the private sectors’ contributions to achieving the SDGs are already underway.

The SDGs provide a basis for more standardized reporting by the public and private sector around widely accepted goals and targets,  and improved alignment in reporting would help clarify whether organizations, communities, regions, and nations are making meaningful progress on sustainable development.

The UN is supporting the  Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)  established by an international network of investors, that encourages its members to incorporate the six sustainability principles into investment decision-making and ownership practices. 



The UN has initiated the Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) as a peer-to-peer learning platform for exploring how the private sector can enhance corporate transparency and performance on sustainability and eventually encourage sustainable investment.



In Indonesia, the issuance of OJK’s regulation no 51 of 2017 on Sustainable Financing for Financial Institutions and Publicly-listed Companies provides a good policy framework for private sector to report on their sustainability profiles, impact and efforts to integrate sustainability considerations into business decisions.



The implementation of the SDGs represents a USD 12 trillion business opportunity which can only be harnessed if high-quality information is available for market participants. SDG business reporting will be an essential step in this direction.

I do hope that this seminar will shed on the progress made in business reporting and the tools and good practices that Indonesia must build on.

Thank you to the organizers once again, and wishing you productive discussions today.



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