The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 by all UN member states and have been embraced by many multinational enterprises (MNEs) and international NGOs. They created a 'hybrid governance' platform in which companies, governments, NGOs, and knowledge institutes can work on achieving common goals through targeted action and serve as the leading global sustainable development framework until 2030. By the year 2020, however, progress towards the goals proved slow, prompting the UN to announce a 'Decade of Action'. The slow or limited adoption and implementation of the SDG Agenda by MNEs-in close interaction with government policies-is one of the root causes for delayed progress. The question is no longer 'why' MNEs should develop sustainability strategies, but rather 'how'. A number of related questions arise. What have been the roles of MNEs in progress towards the SDGs, what is needed from them in the future, and what can be the role of international business (IB) scholarship in shaping discussion and action? This Special Issue tackles these questions from four angles: (1) identifying and helping to fill theoretical gaps in IB research on the SDGs; (2) asking which SDGs and targets provide promising venues for societally relevant IB research topics; (3) assessing and helping to fill empirical gaps by using, complementing, and upgrading relevant SDG indicators; and (4) showing how IB research and policy practice can become better aligned.
Reformulation of the millennium development goals comes at a time when their realization is falling short. 'Development as usual' through global goal setting is in question in context of the recent conjunction of global food, energy, and financial crises. Given the evidence of problematic world-scale restructuring, it is puzzling that SDG visioning continues to assign principal responsibility to states for the post-2015 development agenda. We regard this as an epistemic blind spot that foregoes an opportunity to reorient planning to accommodate the global dimensions of these crises-and their possible solutions. In particular, we note that current forms of land enclosure, and migrant labor generation, are inadequately addressed by state-centric measures, especially with respect to the rights of land users and stateless workers. We offer recommendations for complementing and modifying nationally generated metrics with a more empowering agenda.
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