The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals – Taking the next steps

It has been a year and a half since the United Nations launched the 2030 Agenda, giving world leaders 17 sustainable development goals to work towards. The goals are universal in so far as they are becoming a reality for all the United Nations member countries.

Central to the goals is action on climate change, and we have 15 years to deliver. No more, no less.

According to Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO of Storebrand Asset Manager: "That isn’t a lot of time, so we need everyone to contribute on all levels. Everyone must take responsibility – states, institutions, individuals and civil society – and last but not least, businesses such as ours".

Higher ambitions
The sustainable development goals are already part of the analysis Storebrand has developed for its investment process. Ambitions are now higher, and the goals are to be further integrated while allowing for better communication related to specific goals.

"We have, like the global ambitions, gradually raised our requirements and refined our research model. We are convinced that companies that take the global challenges seriously will be the most profitable long term. To integrate the sustainable development goals in our work and use them as a starting point for the analysis becomes a natural next step, and makes it possible for us to focus our efforts even further and become better at identifying the winners. Companies that are very slow or refuse to adapt have in our mind a long term risk that should not be ignored".

"Our ambition is to focus and map our work against the sustainable development goals in order to demonstrate how they are relevant to us as an investor and how we are doing our part to ensure a more sustainable future and be a part of the 2030 agenda".

Storebrand Asset Management is the largest private asset manager in Norway with NOK 600 billions under management.