Bangkok--21 Feb--PwC (Thailand)
Businesses and authorities must revolutionise their approaches to meet the United Nations-led Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), PwC Thailand says.
Since these ambitious goals were adopted in September 2015, businesses have shown a huge rise in interest and engagement to make them a reality. The SDGs, covering 17 goals and 169 targets, range from ending extreme poverty to ensuring gender equality and addressing climate change, among others.
Wasan Chavalitvorakul, partner of PwC's Consulting practice in Thailand, said the country has demonstrated strong leadership concerning the SDGs.
"We're seeing four key challenges for Thailand on the SDGs," Wasan said. "These are awareness, implementation, partnership, and impact measurement." So, these four are strongly needed across all sectors if a lasting impact is to be achieved.
In order to accelerate progress towards the goals, Wasan said: "First, governments, business, and citizens need to clearly recognise that they operate together in an interconnected world. This will require a new kind of capability-building, which includes raising awareness of global issues like climate change and human rights, as well as building technical and soft-skills that will support the development of practical solutions for these issues in local contexts. This needs to happen across all sectors.
"Secondly, cross-sector engagement and partnership needs to be increased as no single sector can solve these issues on its own. Third, within organisations, there must be a concerted drive towards fast and effective implementation, and change management."
Too often, visionary leaders fail to transmit their vision to the rest of their organisations, Wasan pointed out. Reasons include a lack of management buy-in due to a limited understanding of the broader context, too little investment in internal communications and awareness programmes, and clunky bureaucratic structures.
All of this results in a slowdown in internal progress and leads to wasted resources and demotivation.
"The various impacts of implementation must be measured, if they're to be properly managed," Wasan said. "While discussions about impact measurement have certainly advanced in Thailand in the last few years, widespread impact measurement is still rare in all sectors."
He stressed that governments, businesses, NGOs, and civil society must be clear on their targets, and must put in place data collection systems to measure their progress against those targets.
Wasan noted that the Thai community is reasonably aware of the UN SDGs and their implications compared to other countries in the region.
In February 2016, the Stock Exchange of Thailand Sustainable Development Forum drew almost 400 participants from across businesses, government, media and NGOs. A number of other similar cross-sector forums and seminars have also been launched since then and have been well-attended.
Some leading companies in the oil and gas refinement sector have begun to integrate the SDGs into their business strategy as well as reporting on their performance against them.
At the national level, Thailand's key achievements include:
• establishing a National Committee on Sustainable Development
• incorporating the SDGs into the National Economic and Social Development Plan (2017-
2021) and 20-year National Strategy
• taking on the role of coordinator for the ASEAN-UN SDGs , and
• making use of Thailand's development efforts towards the SDGs through the establishment of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy Partnership programme, under its Chairmanship of the G-77
in 2016 .
Across all sectors, a wide range of programmes and initiatives continue to be created and fostered in support of the UN SDGs.
Thailand, Southeast Asia's second-largest economy after Indonesia, is well positioned to achieve the 2030 agenda, Wasan said.
Before the UN SDGs adoption, the nation has long followed in His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej's footsteps on his Sufficiency Economy Philosophy , and benefitted from the Royal Projects.
Still, Thailand is ranked 61 out of 149 countries on its performance with an overall SDG index score at 62 (out of 100), according to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
This compares with Scandinavian leader Sweden's score at 84.5, Denmark (2nd place) at 83.9, and Norway (3rd place) at 82.3. It's also lower than the United Kingdom (10th place) at 78.1, Singapore (19th place) at 74.6, and the United Sates (25th place) at 73.
"The next chapter of SDGs in Thailand will be how we move from conceptual awareness to more concrete implementation and actions that will make an impact," Wasan said.
"Those companies that can address the four challenges first will have a head start. They'll be able to build their own competitive advantage, as they reduce risks and seize opportunities before others. On top of that, they'll also able to demonstrate to their local community and the world that they can really do what they say they can do when it comes to sustainable development."