Jessica Lobo from the UN Global Compact in the UK is talking about
why sustainability matters for publishers
and why sustainability matters at all for our society
and for our future.
Thank you.
Thank you for inviting me today, and I'm delighted to be opening this year's Future Book Forum.
Well, in the past year, we've been speaking about the future a lot.
And when we speak about the future, and particularly when business speaks about the future,
there are a lot of words that are bandied about.
So recovery, resilience, growth, sustainability, purpose,
there's a real change happening and a real appetite
in business at the moment to be purpose led and do good in the world.
But we often stumble in articulating what that actually means.
Well, in 2015 the UN undertook one of the world's largest
consultations ever to answer that question and find out what it will take to create the future we want.
There were tens of thousands of stakeholders involved.
And the outcome of that process was a 15 year roadmap
adopted by all 193 member states for us to end poverty,
fight inequalities and injustice and put in place the necessary measures
to protect our planet by 2030.
At the heart of the 2030 agenda are these 17 Sustainable Development Goals
which clearly defined that world we want applying to all nations and ensuring that no one is left behind.
These Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the SDGs or the global goals,
they articulate a powerful vision for improving our world.
They motivate ambitious and transformative action and call for worldwide
collaboration between governments, civil society and business.
You can see them on the screen behind me.
These 17 interconnected goals reflect a shared objective.
And together, the idea is that they will bring about ending poverty and hunger,
combating inequalities within and among communities,
building peaceful, just and inclusive societies,
protecting human rights, promoting gender balance, and, of course,
ensuring a lasting protection of our planet and all of the natural resources.
I mean, really, who can argue with that?
So the SDGs are supported by 169 targets and 232 indicators
that help us prioritize, drive and track our progress on this agenda.
Of course, with 2030 fast approaching,
we really need urgent and ambitious action so that we can deliver this.
So the global goals really call on business to leverage their resources,
their creativity and innovative capabilities to solve these sustainable development issues.
But as much as the goals rely on business,
there's also never been a better time for business to use the goals.
73% of CEOs say
that they expect the pressure to act on sustainability to grow significantly over the next three years.
So investing in achieving the SDGs is not only going to help
build a sustainable society, but it's also going to help meet
those growing demands by stakeholders and investors for corporate sustainability action.
Markets involved in delivering
the global goals are currently growing up to three times faster than the overall economy.
And achieving the SDGs is expected to open up more than US$12 trillion
in market opportunities.
So by working to support the SDGs, each company is recognizing that investment in these goals
is laying down the foundation for the business success of the future.
Well, the publishing industry is uniquely placed
to contribute and also benefit from this agenda in 2 regards.
First of all, by the direct impact you can have through your own
sustainable business practices and supply chains.
So that could be investing in clean and energy efficient technologies,
could be engaging in the circular economy by reducing waste and eliminating single use plastic
or by working with the suppliers that protect the forest, that supply your raw materials.
It could be looking at the impacts
that you have on your employees and your communities so paying a living wage,
promoting gender balance across the organization,
or even supporting colleagues with mental well-being.
Tackling these issues is not just about reducing the negative impacts,
but it's about scaling up and really benefit
from those positive impacts that you can have through your own operations.
As I mentioned, though, it's not just through your operations that you can contribute to this agenda.
The second way is through the power of your publishing content
to communicate about the goals and the themes that they address.
So whether you're a bookseller and you stock books that help readers understand
what climate change means for them or you're a library
that puts on events that promote cultural heritage
or a publisher yourself that perhaps
nurtures writers from underrepresented communities,
builds relationships
with illustrators that can represent diversity in their characters
or supports teachers to develop
inclusive curriculums that teach students about these issues.
Everyone can benefit with this agenda, and everyone can contribute it to it.
Even even just raising awareness of the goals can help accelerate us towards these goals.
And in part, the recognition of that was what
set up the SDG Publishers Compact.
So the SDG Publishers Compact is a pledge
of ten concrete steps that publishers and publishing
organizations can commit to in order to accelerate this agenda.
The Publishers Compact was a voluntary
initiative that launched last year and is designed really to share some of the great work that publishers are already doing,
but also to inspire others to go further and become champions of the SDGs.
And of course, then in turn enjoy some of that accelerated growth, new markets and opportunities that this brings about.
So if you're new to this
agenda, then I'd really encourage you to take a look at the SDG Publishers Compact
and speak to one of the 150 plus organizations
that are already committed to doing this work.
So where do I come into all of this?
Well, my role at the UN Global Compact Network UK is to provide the practical support
for businesses to align their strategies with these goals
and drive innovation and scale impact.
We are a larger voluntary initiative designed
to foster cross-sector conversations and partnerships.
So taking some of that value from the Publishers Compact
and scaling up across all industries and sectors.
We provide on the ground support, access to local partnerships
and opportunities and tools and resources that can help you really understand what this agenda means for you.
So I've got a couple
of examples of what our members are already doing in this space.
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, they've taken print on demand
one step further with their print on time system.
So they maintain their own print, storage and dispatch system in-house,
meaning that they can employ local people, reduce shipping miles,
and use clever algorithms to ensure that they've got
enough books in stock and that never go out of stock.
A Dutch academic publisher, Brill.
They've matched their work across the SDGs to understand what it is that they're publishing.
And they found that more than 15,000 publications relate to the goals,
many centered around Goal 16, which is peace, justice and strong institutions.
Brill are looking at how they can expand and disseminate their research widely
through initiatives like their HumanitiesMatter blog and podcast series.
And my third example, Epsilon Publishers,
who are based in Kenya, they've partnered with an organization called Enable
which use their assistive technology to share the publications with visually impaired students in Africa.
So Epsilon publishers upload their books onto a reading platform and
then people with disabilities can access them free of charge.
So there's just a couple of examples of what people are already doing in this space.
But really, I challenge each and every one of you today to have a think
about how you can not only engage with this agenda,
but really raise the bar and step up to transformative action
because the global ambitions of the SDGs require
transformational solutions and innovation.
As we saw last year when the effects of COVID-19 really started to ramp up.
In times of crises, business that succeed is businesses
that can shift to meet the new customer demands.
Business that identifies new opportunities created by these changing landscapes.
Business that reevaluates the distribution of resources and innovates to meet these new market realities.
COVID-19 isn't the only crisis we're facing.
In fact, it's not even the only health crisis we're facing.
But companies which embrace innovation throughout crises
emerge stronger.
In 2019, during the financial crisis, for example, organizations that maintain their focus on innovation
outperformed the market average by more than 30%
and continue to enjoy accelerated growth.
This is an opportunity and organizations
that embrace the opportunities to innovate around the SDGs will be
the market leaders of tomorrow.
Developing an innovation
focused mindset that is about developing a deep understanding of these core problems
and then having a desire to build a solution that addresses that.
It's about asking why not?
Instead of just asking why. It's about embracing that uncertainty.
And most importantly, I think it's about inviting others to join in.
So building collaborative partnerships that can result in innovative ideas that wouldn't otherwise been possible.
Embracing the
divisive thought that can help you see beyond preconceptions,
challenging each other, learning from each other, and working together.
The SDGs can be used as the lens for ideation
to help drive that generation of new ideas.
So by using the SDGs as the problem that you need to solve, your teams
can then uncover new markets, rethink current approaches,
find opportunities to become resilient, and find ways to disrupt
rather than being disrupted yourself.
Sustainability is the catalyst for this change.
And as we saw in some of the example I shared, digital technology
and innovation are the enablers of this.
This is a huge agenda.
But as I said, it's a huge opportunity.
If you only do one thing today, then I ask you to do this.
Start that conversation.
Speak to your colleagues, your manager, your board,
and find out what the SDGs mean for your organization.
Speak to your suppliers, your stakeholders,
and find out what the goals mean for them and speak to your communities,
your competitors or the innovators among you that are already working on this
agenda and can help scale up those conversations into actions for the future.
Because collaboration is really key to implementing
sustainability innovation and driving the future that we want.
That future and those conversations begin right here this afternoon at the Future Book Forum.
I'm delighted to be here and really excited to see what this afternoon brings.
Thank you for inviting me to kick this afternoon off, and I look forward to connecting
as we work together on the world's largest To-Do list.
Fantastic.
So thank you so much, Jessica Lobo.
So Jessica is going to join me just in a second
to answer some questions. So now is the opportunity,
if you'd like to go to the Q&A button on your desktop to ask Jessica questions.
But what strikes me is that you talked there, Jessica, about the collaboration opportunity.
How can we work together to do this and this forum
is really a community of printers and publishers from all across the world.
I saw just the other day how at the Volkswagen Leadership Summit,
we had Elon Musk kind of popped in.
He was the archenemy in some ways of Volkswagen being Tesla's CEO.
But he said, actually, we need to work together
to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy, sustainable mobility.
And what strikes me really about sustainability as we talk about it
is it used to be the idea which was at the side of the organization.
It used to be CSR, people used to call it.
It was it was something which was nice to do.
And we wrote a separate report about it.
But now it's kind of gone core.
It's at the heart of the business.
It's why business exists.
It's how they drive their strategies.
So I was just wondering. You talked a little bit about some of the examples. But have companies, which you've seen,
really moved to taking the SDGs as something
nice to do in a tick box, if you like, to something which really makes them think differently?
Yeah, it's a really good question.
And I suppose it depends which organizations you're looking at.
Some of the largest organizations, we're really starting to see them now,
as you said, implementing the SDGs and aligning their core strategy with them and then using that to set
really ambitious targets for the future
that align with the goals and can help their organization move on.
I think what we're still seeing is a bit of a bit of a gap between some of those really ambitious organizations
and then there's some that are still quite new to this agenda.
But as I said, I think every contribution matters.
And even just being aware of it and starting to have those conversations
can help you then move up to having that ambitious approach.
So you join us today. We're talking about book publishing.
I know you're not an expert in our industry.
We're the experts.
But but what do you as an outsider, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges
which which book publishers and printers have in amidst these 17 different goals?
Yeah. That's a good question. I suppose probably
goal 12, which is around responsible consumption and production.
A lot of it is about looking at our waste and from from what I understand I think there is a lot of waste.
In the publishing industry, especially around paper around some of the processes
even when you're starting to look at things like logistics.
So I think that's probably one of one of the biggest issues
and one of the areas where innovation and technology can really help us move on from that.
I suppose the other (it's not necessarily an issue): but what are the opportunities?
I kind of touched on this in my presentation
is that power of the things that you are actually producing.
So books have real opportunity to transform us.
And I think that's a real huge opportunity that the publishing industry can do.
And really accelerate the SDGs.
Yeah, that's what I've seen myself when people are using the SDGs. Some of them are using them
to kind of comply and reduce their emissions or to reduce the negative things which they do.
But many others are actually using it in positive ways.
I was looking at Danone, for example, the food company, and how they've really moved towards being a health business,
not just a food company. Then really saying how can we contribute towards health challenges,
but also adding more health to people rather than just making food.
Or cement, Cemex, they use the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
to truly think about where are the new opportunities to develop new services.
And I love that figure.
The $12 trillion opportunity which we heard about.
So a question which comes online:
Is there a process to sign up for the SDGs
or there seminars and other ways to learn
more about what the what they're all about and how to implement those ideas?
Yeah, definitely.
Well, I think my organization, the UN Global Compact, and we are all around the world.
Loads of fantastic events and webinars
that are talking about these issues. I think particularly for the publishing industry,
the SDG Publishers Compact is a great place to start.
It's a voluntary initiative so you can find it
by searching online.
You can see what those ten steps are, those ten actions that you can take.
And it's a process just of, I think signing
a form to commit to doing those ten steps, and from that
then accessing this huge network of publishers that are already working in the space.
So I think that's a great place to start. Really practical.
And it also gives you some ideas of who is already engaging in this that you can then talk to.
And somebody else is asking, it might be quite a technical question:
if I look at those 17 SDGs for my business,
how do I start to work out which ones are most important for me?
What kind of analytical process might I be able to go through
to get started in terms of where to focus?
Yeah, again, a great question.
And what we encourage organizations to do is to really map out your value chain.
So you've got that good understanding of what it is that you as an organization are actually doing.
And then look at the 17 goals, not just at the goal level, but at that target level.
There are 169 targets.
So looking at the targets will help you really understand, first of all, what is it
that goal is trying to achieve, but where you then have synergies between what you're doing and
where you are as an organization. I think if you're particularly struggling
to understand kind of translating them, I would look at some of the work
that's coming out of the UN Global Compact who are doing a bit of piece translating them for business.
And I think that's going to be really valuable for a lot of organizations that are going to be taking this up.
So it sounds a bit like when you look at the value chain or the customer journey
and you start mapping the kind of the different costs involved or the ways in which you can drive new revenues,
but instead you look at the broader impact across that whole thing.
Maybe a way of just measuring high, medium, low would be a good way to start before putting actual numbers on it.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that word you mention there, impact.
I think that's really key because, as I said, it's not just about your operations, but it's about what your books
or your services are then having an impact on.
Okay. And one final question.
Specifically, the Publisher's Compact.
So what is the Publisher's Compact?
And how do we get involved in it?
How do publishers get involved in it?
Yeah, well, it's a voluntary initiative.
So any organization within the public publishing industry
can look it up and make that commitment.
And that's what it is.
Essentially, it's just a commitment, commitment to implement
those ten actions that they've they, they've set out into your organization.
And they're really practical.
They're some great ideas of actually what you can be doing.
And so I think it's a it's just a case of going on to the website.
You can put it into a search engine and you'll find it
and signing up using their forms.
And of course, that then gives you access to their network,
all of the marketing materials so that you can then be talking about the commitment that you've made.
And I think it's a really a fantastic first step, definitely, for any organization.
Brilliant.
So this conversation is just getting started, isn't it?
So there's so much more to talk about.
And you're going to be joining us later in the program, as well.
But for now, thank you so much for your speech and for coming to Munich to join us today.
Thank you.