17 Sustainable Development Goals to achieve

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership.

It is widely accepted that not only countries, but also private sector, companies and investors, are essential to accomplishing the 169 targets in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. There are some profound examples of corporate commitment to the SDGs. Examples include Microsoft’s aims to be carbon negative by 2030, Danone’s focus on water management and climate action, Patagonia’s ethical sourcing and promotion of the circular economy and Johnson & Johnson’s initiatives aimed at improving global health and enhancing care access, and environmental sustainability.

These are some ambitious goals and none of them will be easy for any company. When it comes to SDGs, companies of much smaller stature have an opportunity to punch above their weight. Achieving the SDGs should not be relegated to the actions and commitments of Fortune 500 companies alone. We are grateful to be able to do this in cooperation with our customers and partners who are mutually committed to transforming our world.

Read here to see how your company can advance each of the SDGs. Below are some examples of how Nortal is doing it with our customers today.

Proactive services are breaking the barriers of digital literacy

SDG #10 is about reducing inequalities. Among our other government customers, we are helping Estonia  to do so by taking public sector service digitalization to a new level and what we consider a new standard for government digitalization.

Estonia is one of the few countries to realize proactive services triggered automatically by life events (e.g., a mother has a baby and without lifting a finger she automatically receives her entitlements). As more subsidy and job finding services are moved on-line, those people with lower digital literacy levels are in challenging positions. As services become proactive, they find people in need and digital literacy levels or access to the internet is not a barrier.

Transparency and data as key sustainability enablers

All the SDGs require a digital source of truth for reporting and transparency with a commitment to a rigorous standard of accountability.

We work with a metals company, active in the fields of exploration, mining, smelting and metal recycling. Their vision is to be the most respected and climate friendly metal provider in the world, that we are proud to support and through SDG #9 Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure. We have enabled 100% transparency and control of their end-to-end integrated supply chain as well as material logistics optimization. This impacts €6B worth of material planned annually and approximately 140k tons of produced copper metal.

In support of SDG #7 – affordable and clean energy – we are working with a global solar provider on a mission to provide sustainable solar energy for future generations and global biofuels company, who aims to cut clients’ greenhouse gas emissions by 20M tons annually before 2030. We provisioned one of their core business solutions as part of their transformation program focusing on renewable products. This includes compliance in all bio criteria tracking regulation for financial compensation and tax benefit eligibility. We track and allocate sustainability criteria of raw materials (consisting of various waste products and residues) to calculate their greenhouse emissions, and systematically manage sustainability criteria of raw material flows as a key component of transforming towards a sustainable business focused on renewables.

Strong infrastructure and institutions are foundational prerequisites

The Smart Port solution however is the epitome of streamlined port management. We have redesigned all interactions from digital environments to physical contact points at the harbour. Among other benefits, this results in less CO2 pollution. Small contributions like this add up to SDG #13 – combating climate change.

Our work with Saudi Statistics bolstered SDG #16 and the creation of strong institutions. Nortal implemented the data processing pipeline and automated it end-to-end.​ The Census 2022 project uses administrative registers as well as data collected from the field, which is processed to the highest data quality using state of the art data processing techniques, preserving data integrity, timeliness, and anonymity. ​