Why the UN Sustainable Development Goals are vital for your startup

A basic requirement, from an Investor’s perspective, is that a startup can articulate the problem they solve.  That problem can be quite small, or it could be a global issue.  Whichever it is, increasingly investors are looking for investments whose problem-solving delivers social impact and/or makes positive contributions to sustainability – and this is where the UN Sustainable Development Goals come in.

The UN describes them as “17 Goals to transform our world”, and they range from eradicating poverty to protecting sea life and reducing inequality.  By committing your company to a UN Sustainable Development Goal, it helps to communicate the impact of the problem you solve on a larger scale, and it shows that you provide positive impact in the world as part of running your company.

What does ‘committing’ to a goal mean?

This very definitely isn’t about just putting something on your website (although you definitely should, there is a full logo pack on the UN website for you to choose your goal icons).  By committing to a goal, you are committing to take action, to do good through your company.  If your actual product or service doesn’t do this directly, you can use websites like www.b1g1.com to easily support existing programmes or do something on your own in your local area.  The goals break down into specific targets, so you can choose one target within a specific goal to focus on.

Here at Spark! we support three Goals: