How can Business Achieve the UN Global Goals?

Join us Wednesday May 9 at 10am ET on Twitter — #FlourishPrizes2018

This week we’re hosting the #FlourishPrizes2018 Virtual Celebration on Twitter and Facebook, to honor the 17 best-of-the-best stories published on AIM2Flourish.com by business students worldwide.

Each one of these stories provides an example of positive and profitable business innovation for the UN Global Goals.

But that’s only part of the story. Behind these 17 Honorees, there are 63 Finalists, and 503 stories in total from 2017, and over 1,000 stories in total that business students have published on AIM2Flourish.com since mid-2015.

When you put 1,000+ of these stories together, you can start seeing the outlines of a new, bigger story of what might be possible if these positive examples were multiplied, scaled, replicated, and improved. This new story might be called: How Business Helped Achieve the UN Global Goals by 2030.

How might we bring this story to life, so that all businesses are both successful and positive contributors to society and the environment? The answer is: by asking better questions. The Appreciative Inquiry method of positive, strengths-based questions that AIM2Flourish is based on shows us that we live in worlds our questions create. If the right kind of questions can lead to completely new possibilities, then we we can change the story about business from best in the world, to best for the world, until it becomes our everyday reality.

Storytelling is important and essential work to help all of us understand and work together to achieve the Global Goals by 2030. Stories are how humans make sense of the world and themselves. The Goals are big, and complicated, and interconnected, so stories (as well as data) are essential.

That’s why AIM2Flourish uses storytelling to collect positive examples about how business is a powerful force for good and for the Global Goals.

So let’s ask some questions together on Wednesday, May 9 at 10am ET. Join us for a one-hour Twitter chat using the hashtag #FlourishPrizes2018.

Question 1: Please introduce yourself! Where are you from? If you would like, tell us one positive thing in your life today.

Question 2: What do the UN Global Goals mean to you?

Question 3: How might business be a powerful force for good and help achieve the UN Global Goals by 2030?

Question 4: When you think about Global Goals leadership, what kinds of qualities do you think are most important? What people and organizations do you admire?

Question 5: How might higher-education best prepare young people to be Global Goals leaders?

Question 6: When we achieve the UN Global Goals by 2030, what will be different in our world?

Question 7: How might each of us be Global Goals Leaders in our own lives?

We look forward to asking these questions — and hearing your responses — this Wednesday, May 9 at 10am ET on Twitter.

AIM2Flourish is an initiative of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at the Weatherhead School of Management — Case Western Reserve University. Learn more at: AIM2Flourish.com.