One Page Summary

In 2015, world leaders signed off on a global strategy for building a stable, fair, and sustainable future for all: the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Next to an agenda towards a better world, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a $12 trillion economic opportunity. Yet, making the business case for sustainability, and integrating the Agenda into your day to day operations is easier said than done.

C-Change & Dutch Network Group (DNG) joined forces for this proposal, which addresses the challenge of getting small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) on board of the SDG bandwagon. In order to do so, we will launch a challenge-based campaign that makes it easy and worthwhile for business owners in Amsterdam to learn about the SDGs, to commit to working with the SDGs, and to translate those commitments into concrete actions to integrate the SDGs into the core of their work. Worth noting is that BIZ4SDGs challenge distinguishes between local SME’s and social enterprises (SE’s). This last group are not only critical champions and ambassadors for sustainability, even they need support and incentives to internalize the 2030 Agenda.

Supported by a campaign to raise awareness throughout the local SME and SE community, we will launch a BIZ4SDGs challenge where we aim to get 1.000 local businesses in Amsterdam to commit and contribute to the SDGs. C-Change and its partners will take the lead in bringing the SE, DNG will push on its support base of 100,000s SMEs to trigger action.

The challenge has 4 iterative steps:
The first step challenge challenges Amsterdam’s 100,000 local businesses to take concrete actions to work with the SDGs by completing an SDG commitment "Bingo Card". The SDG Bingo Card offers a list of practical actions per SDG theme that business owners can undertake. We imagine 3 themes, as researched by the Stockholm Resilience Institute: Economy, Social & Biosphere (e.g. within Biosphere, businesses can commit to change their energy contract to a green energy provider). Those who truly hit the ball out of the park, most likely SEs, are invited to share their business models and sustainable products, flagging their impact and SDG contributions.

For the second phase of our program we join forces with our partners to move beyond commitments and invite businesses to enroll in the challenge. Participating organizations are invited to attend workshops, join us on stands at conferences, and receive concrete toolkits. Also, they receive a sticker with a QR code where Amsterdam citizens can follow their work and progress. Outreach is done through MKB Service Desk (reaching 350k SMEs monthly) and the SDG Gateway (national portal for SDG related initiatives). We’re in conversations with UNGC NL, MVO, MKB Amsterdam, Rabobank, and RAI on the best way to raise the profile of this challenge.

As we know that it’s not easy for businesses to take the SDGs on board, our third phase therefore involves an ongoing effort to support local business owners – incl. SMEs and SEs - during their SDG journey. We offer concrete ‘know-how’ by organizing workshops, provide access to online platforms to learn about the SDG’s and to get inspired by the efforts of other local businesses. Taking advantage of initiatives already happening in the city, we can multiply our resources by pulling in existing initiatives into our programming such as informational sessions, city-wide events, and posting existing online content.

To reward participating businesses and to inspire others, it is important to celebrate the most sustainable SMEs at the end of the road, putting a spotlight on our local SDG champions. By lining up local and national SDG ambassadors (incl Unilever), by actively publishing online content, and by injecting SDG related content into large-scale SME events, we continuously generate attention and give exposure to participating businesses and their efforts. After 6 months, we will hold a celebratory event where a lottery picks 17 SDG Winners who have taken all the actions stipulated and celebrate those SEs that have truly put the SDGs at the heart of their work.

C-Change, a SE that facilitated a national SDG investing roadmap with the financial sector and successfully launched a Dutch SDG Gateway w/ the national SDG Charter, and DNG, owner of MKBServicedesk, will act as campaign managers. Together we’ll design the challenge, provide an online challenge environment, and invite parties to join our challenge.

The BIZ4SDGs challenge in Amsterdam is just the start of our global BIZ4SDGs campaign. The Amsterdam BIZ4SDGs is best described as a pilot program that will teach us the ropes and that is designed for replication and to trigger a regional and global race to the top between city business ecosystems. We have lined up 30 global partner multipliers – including the United Nations - and 20 cities that are keen to roll this challenge out locally. Likely ‘next up’ cities include Paris, Nairobi, and Palo Alto.