Resources for Startups to Advance the SDGs
February, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to push back progress on the 2030 SDG targets — which were already off track. This makes it even more essential for startups and other social enterprises to renew focus on Global Goal action plans.
Here are some resources — both new and ‘evergreen’ — to help you.
#1. The UN Global Compact encourages businesses worldwide to be responsible corporate citizens and to solve social and environmental challenges through business innovation.
#2. The Founder Institute’s mission is “to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build technology businesses that positively impact the world.” It has developed a free Progress Planner tool “to search and generate iKPIs … (and) to work towards becoming an Impact Company through realistic, trackable steps.”
# 3. This Forbes article Finding A Way For Fledgling Startups To Adopt The Sustainable Development Goals explains the Founder Institute’s iKPIs and accelerator program for social impact startups in greater detail.
#4. StartUs Insights “delivers actionable innovation intelligence on startups, technologies, and trends.” It analyzed over 3,000 global startups and “scaleups” to develop in-depth research on the top trends and startups working towards the SDGs.
This research gives you data-driven innovation intelligence that improves strategic decision-making by giving you an overview of emerging technologies & startups tackling societal, economical, environmental, and industrial challenges.
#5. German-based GründerAtelier (GA) is an “innovation funnel for companies and entrepreneurs in Europe.” Its guide for entrepreneurs to the SDGs explains why the SDGs are important for startups. GA also has an Impact Accelerator program for startups addressing one or more of the SDGs.
#6. Rainmaking seeks to “unleash the power of entrepreneurship to solve big problems with the world’s leading companies.” It offers an online masterclass on “mapping the world’s SDG startups, and why innovation is a driver for sustainability.”
The UN Sustainable Development Goals represent both an obligation and an opportunity. Not only does pursuing these goals make sense for society and the planet but sustainability is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions in untapped opportunities. Yet in many cases sustainability has been a side effort parked under the CSR umbrella.
#7. Google for Startups offers an accelerator for SDG-focused startups.
#8. UNWTO (United Nations World Trade Organization) conducts a global SDG startup competition.
StartingUpGood supports fresh entrepreneurial approaches to doing good in the world. We track the progress of implementing and measuring the SDGs through our program SDGCounting. Check us out on Twitter: StartingUpGood.
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