SDGs Management: Who does and who doesn’t? Types of people taking action towards SDGs

Nikkei Research has been conducting various surveys to evaluate the efforts related to SDGs of companies and local governments. Such as the Nikkei SDGs Management Survey and the nationwide Cities & Counties SDGs Advancement Survey, to name a few. We will introduce what outcomes can be obtained by SDGs management and advanced case studies toward combating climate change and achieving carbon-zero, which has become an urgent issue nowadays.

In this article, we will focus on the SDGs-related activities that company employees take part in.

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SDGs Management Project Team, Junko Maki

In the past few years, as companies rapidly adopt SDGs management, we heard from people promoting within the company that there is a large struggle over spreading it internally -- “there is a wide gap between the management level and employees”, “have trouble getting employees involved”. To succeed in SDGs management, it is important that all employees, and not only the management level or the promoting section, see the SDGs connected to their future and take it as their own matter making actions proactively. While employees can also be consumers, their behavior beyond work should be affected in an extent. We will introduce the results from our survey, looking at actual situations of SDGs activities among people in the workplaces and personal lives to explore the keys on taking actions.

Half of people are involved in activities contributing SDGs

In the Nikkei Research’s survey conducted in June 2021, people who are employed to some organizations were asked about their activities that contributes to SDGs in an open-ended question. 31% of the total answered that they are involved in SDGs related activities in both their personal life and work. With combining the share of “in personal life only” and “at work only”, half of people engage in such activities.

Figure 1. Engagement of activities contributing to SDGs

The top keywords were "garbage", "power/energy saving", and "recycling" at the workplace. It was revealed that many companies have established their systems of garbage separation or hybridization of company cars based on environmental ISO. Gender equality, such as support for maternity/childcare leave and promotion of female managers, also came into the top list.
In personal life, keywords related to garbage were the most. The reuse of resources through sorting and recycling, the reduction of plastic products by bring-your-own bag and bring-your-own bottle, as well as preventing food loss were also in the top list.
The keyword "family" appeared frequently -- "I donate to a local children's cafeteria. I have children of my own, so if there are children in need near me, I want to help them", "Supporting foster parents for children in Guatemala. My husband has great intentions in supporting children in developing countries, and I thought I'd take part in it too.” -- indicating that issues related to SDGs are being taken as personalized matters through the connection with their family.

Table 1. Top 20 keywords of SDGs related activities

Characteristics of people who take part in SDGs activities

Those working in manufacturing and energy related sector, such as "Materials", "Energy", " Automobiles, transportation equipment”, and ”Machinery, heavy electric machinery”, where carbon-free is an urgent issue, showed a high rate of implementation of SDGs activities. In their responses, we found that some works are directly connected in contributing to SDGs.
"I provide consulting services covering environment, disaster prevention, and usability upon developing new facilities and make SDGs related proposals to local governments, building owners, and general contractors.”
“I'm working on a business plan with my team to convert combustion heating equipment to heat pumps for carbon-free.”
The responses from people in these industries showed that even departments other than those in charge of the SDGs can engage in activities and contribute -- "all employees participate in weekly cleaning activities inside and outside the company", "turning off lights during breaks”. They would also practice beyond their work, showing that the SDGs issues are becoming more personal.

Table 2. Engagement of activities contributing to SDGs by industry

On the other side, half of the people are not involved in any SDGs related activities. Even if they are participating, there were responses such as "Not particularly, but at least I sort garbage" or "I try to save electricity, which is not something special”. It can be said that they have hesitance and backlash towards appealing their “normal” behavior from the past as “SDGs activities”. The big difference between those who say "I do" compared to those who say "I do not “ in practicing SDGs, seems to be by whether the person take it as their own matter or not.

We cannot say it is the same even if the activities are the same but there is a difference in people’s mindset; when we asked about the willingness to use products/services of companies that are passionate and putting efforts in recycling, gender, and human rights, those who are practicing SDGs activities were more favorable to such companies. It is clear that, if people take SDGs as their personal matters, it will lead to change not only within the workplace but in broad areas including consumption behavior as consumers.
The success of companies’ communication and training programs for internal penetration of the SDGs would depend on whether they can make employees’ mindset to leverage SDGs as their own personal matters.

Figure 2. Products/services willing to use or purchase more