Sustainable development goals within the FMCG sector
Discuss about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Goods Sector.
This report is going to elaborate the process of implementing sustainable development goals within the FMCG sector. FMCG refers to the fast moving consumer goods. These are the products, which have a short shelf life and are non-durable too. Either this is because of high demand in the market or the quality of the products deteriorates if not consumed within a stipulated duration. For instance, pre-packaged food items, chocolates, soft drinks and juice, medicines and the cleaning products can be considered. A detail study of Chaklader et al. (2013) suggests that, consumers purchase these kind of products frequently and do not engage themselves into detail research before shopping. The marketers experience high turnover without contributing a large amount. Except retail market, there are fast moving consumer electronic goods as well, like headphones, cameras, mobile phones, cables and various digital appliances. The purpose of this paper will be to determine sustainable development goals within this sector and it will evaluate the goals in terms of its impact on society and environment. It will further frame some strategies as well in order to implement the SDGs.
UN Global Compact have shortlisted ten major principles in the arenas of society and environment, which are covering labour, human rights and anti-corruption practices (Costanza et al. 2014). Considering the food and beverage industry as a part of fast moving consumer goods sector a number of effective principles and initiatives have been taken in order to achieve sustainable development in the market. Fair trade policy, food loss and waste protocol, global protocol on packaging sustainability for consumer goods are some of those initiatives, which are leading towards sustainable development goals (Griggs et al. 2014). There are several instances of joint venture, which influence sustainable development in a positive way. Hence, the following report will concentrate on determining three most effective sustainable development goals within the FMCG sector considering the market opportunities as well as positive impact on the society and environment. United Nation’s global goals can be crucial to execute, as SDGs are extremely general in nature. The agenda does not carry a setup, which is more target oriented and can work as a guideline to implement the goals according to the future requirement. Although, sustainable goals have been framed keeping only positive outcome in mind, several risks have been identified while working towards these SDGs. These goals are as follows.
- Remove poverty from everywhere : There are several ways by which this goal can be fulfilled like being a part of multi-stakeholder partnership not only leads to prosperity but also opening of new business markets enables the opportunity of high future demand. Therefore, if the example of Unilever and Coca-Cola’s initiative to achieve the goal is concerned then their recruitment of research teams supported by non-profit organizations to perform ‘Poverty Footprint Studies’ and the objective is to measure the impact of the companies’ business operations on population suffering from poverty. These policies and good practices have enhanced a positive social and economic impact. In collaboration with Oxfam (eminent non-profit organisation) and a multi-stakeholder business group, the UN Global Compact decided to launch the ‘poverty footprint tool’ to measure impacts of corporate decisions on people living with poverty. Agendas considering poverty are never-ending and the execution is becoming more difficult day by day in a competitive market where companies’ mentality is profit oriented (Chaklader et al. 2013). Owners are likely to ignore social contributions. Although, FMGC industries mostly try to create job and business opportunities still removing poverty from everywhere in near future seems like a hypothetical situation.
- Remove hunger in all its forms: One more crisis, which is linked with poverty, is hunger. The objective is to achieve food security and nutrition for all and promote sustainable agricultural process in the country (Johnston, Fanzo and Cogill 2014). Companies are collaborating with farmers, food processing units and retail business owners to increase the supply, production, storage of the food and efficiency of the market (Waldmueller 2015). Companies are connecting them internally with the purpose of developing their potential. Concentrating more on nutritional values before selling food or beverage because they have started considering this aspect as their social responsibility. Involving the agricultural farm helps immensely to secure the quality of the food and satisfaction of the customers (Jones and Ejeta 2016). Moreover, as the capital is comparatively low, companies can sell them in an affordable price, which ensures food security to a major part of the population. Engro food limited, Starbucks, Nestle are some organisations who have taken part in the process of achieving this sustainable development goal, which has a positive impact on the society. Sustainable goals come with the purpose of social stability; yet execution will not be easy as almost every organisation is a part of tremendous competitive business environment where profit comes first. In this scenario, the thought of removing hunger within a period, is somewhat surreal.
- Achieving sustainable production and consumption pattern of goods: Another positive influence over the environment can be identified if consumption pattern can be designed according to the production. In order to avoid deforestation, people can try to obtain goods like palm oil, soy, beef, paper and pulp. Using natural refrigerants people can restrict the emission of HFC and the use of chemical refrigerants. Although, it is difficult for large retail industries to use natural refrigerants to keep the materials fresh. Fruits and vegetables should be sold fresh in larger proportion than being used for processing. Reducing water and energy consumption while development of products again can be helpful. While packaging it is important to use elements, which can be recycled. Joint ventures of stakeholders, suppliers and retail stores are to supervise the areas of wastage of raw materials and foods. Moreover, consumers should be aware of the fact that why sustainable structure of production and consumption is necessary in order to lead a healthy life on our planet. Environmental issues should be dealt with highest priority, however, the flow of consistent engagement and focus are some variable aspects and their nature cannot be predicted.
Strategies to accomplish sustainable development goals
These sustainable development goals are undoubtedly beneficial in terms of fulfilling social, economic and environmental purposes. However, to accomplish the both the global goals and objectives of the FMGC sector, industry officials should adopt effective strategies so that each future assumption can be transformed into reality.
- With the purpose of reducing poverty, strategies should be instructed towards developing the present condition of the countries by sustaining the economic growth. It can be possible if the unutilized areas of the economy can be explored and in order to increase the productivity and their potential can be enhanced accordingly. Especially, through the promotional campaigns as well as development of small and medium retail chains and agro based industries it may be possible to help the society to get rid of poverty (Mutagwaba and Omore 2015). Simultaneously, a sustainable economic growth for the industries cannot be denied in an atmosphere like this (Jones, Hillier and Comfort 2016). According to Le Blanc (2015), strategies are entirely target oriented. A target has been set to make at least half of the national population free from poverty by 2030.
- In order to make the country hunger free, therefore the strategy should be to create more job opportunities to improve the lifestyle of the population coming from poor financial background. Agro businesses and retail chains itself offer a wide range of job roles to the young population. Agro businesses also help to achieve desired food security by offering the society good quality of fruits and vegetables and other nutritious food materials (World Health Organization 2016). Industries should develop their infrastructure to promote production of agricultural products while generating employment opportunities for the rural and unprivileged communities of the nation. These agro-industry based developments promote innovation and create security of healthy foods at the same time (Winkler et al. 2017). The target is, by 2030, to end hunger issues of people living a poor unhealthy lifestyle and to end malnutrition among children and women by 2025 (Ahmed et al. 2016).
- Considering the changing nature of the global climate, it has become necessary to execute the strategies in order to serve the environment in a positive way. Strategy for accomplishing the goal of sustainable production and consumption structure emphasize the promotion of those industries which practice a hygienic process of production also ensure efficient resources in the case of developing countries. Environment scientists and engineers engage themselves being a part of ‘cleaner production programme’ to instruct the firms on the grounds of production without making any harm to the environment (Bouma 2014). With the purpose of implementing the strategies, a framework of 10 years has been prepared on the sustainable pattern of production and consumption of fastest moving consumer goods. Keeping the agendas in mind all the countries are working towards the objectives while developed countries are leading, developing countries are trying their best to influence the outcome.
Conclusion
Initially, the purpose of this report was to deliver an insight about the global goals, which should be taken into account seriously while operating FMCG industry. It can be concluded at the statement that formerly discussed three major SDGs are essential in order to observe social and economic purposes along with the growth of the companies. The strategies if implemented in a proper way the target related to the goals can be achieved. Although, it is difficult to predict future yet, if the missions can be accomplished partly as well, it will be considered as a success and further planning can be done considering the contemporary situation. Therefore, this report can be helpful for the FMCG industries to estimate their objectives if they are thinking of the world as a better place to live.
References
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Bouma, J., 2014. Soil science contributions towards sustainable development goals and their implementation: linking soil functions with ecosystem services. Journal of plant nutrition and soil science, 177(2), pp.111-120.
Chaklader, B., Sharma, R.K., Khatun, R. and Goel, P., 2013. Relationship of Working Capital Management with FMCG Sector Firm’s Profitability. International Journal of Trends in Finance, 1(2), pp.103-16.
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