With only 15% of the UN’s SDG on track business needs to take action, fast

We are halfway to the 2030 deadline and the Sustainable Development Goals are officially in deep trouble. That’s the word from the UN which warned last month that only 15% of the 17 goals are on track – and many are going backwards.

The truth is, this is not just a problem with the SDGs.

More and more we are seeing businesses committing to doing good, but when the rubber hits the road, and when we look at what has actually been done (not what has been promised) things start to fall short. Currently, the road to 2030 is littered with good intentions. But intentions alone won’t solve much. We need action. And we need action that drives change.

That’s why D.O.A is taking a stand by confirming that we will officially be shutting our doors in 2030. This gives us seven more years (or 2,619 days at the time of writing) to put action at the centre of every business.

The idea to close has always been implicit in our name and our purpose. D.O.A stands for Decade of Action, which alludes to the many global movements calling for the 2020s to be the decade in which we finally shift from words to action on social and environmental issues. D.O.A. is also a nod to the acronym Dead On Arrival – a reminder that if we don’t change the way we do business soon, there is no viable business model on a dead planet.

Lessons from our first few years have helped us to realise that a lot of intentions and commitments are implicit – and this is actually a big part of the problem.

D.O.A came to life in 2020 during a world engulfed by a pandemic, a heated US presidential campaign, the Black Lives Matter protests, and Australia’s recovery from devastating bushfires. Since then we have seen seismic shifts in the way we live, work and do business.

Out of this context, business has emerged as our most trusted institution. Just pause for a second and take that in… business, and specifically business leaders, are now our most trusted institutions in society.

In fact, the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer says that business is now the only institution that respondents perceive as both ethical and competent following a three-year rise in its ethics score. But this rise in trust has brought with it a rise in expectations. Now, more than ever, people are turning to the private sector to lead. CEOs are expected to take a stance on societal issues, and there are growing demands for businesses to be transparent and accountable not just for their commitments, but for the action they take (or not) on these issues.

This is a tall ask though, when for a long time we’ve rested on the unspoken rules of societal issues being the responsibility of the ‘third sector’ and optional for everyone else. All of this has made it easy to stay tangled for too long in figuring out things like definitions, acronyms, strategies and complicated models.

The time for making promises and perfecting strategies is officially done. We face very real finite boundaries of time and resources. We need businesses – as the most influential agents of change – to use their influence to shift entire industries towards more positive growth paradigms that bridge purpose and profit. This means every business… even the noodle shop down the road.

Where most businesses struggle to make that leap often shows up in three ways:

1. What: Figuring out the causes we can impact most

2. How: Knowing the practical action we can take

3. Bam: Knowing how to make that action really count.

D.O.A will spend the next seven and a quarter years (now four minutes less than before, but who’s counting?) towards helping every business to solve this.

For us, being explicitly guided by our endpoint is more than a brand promise. It’s an acknowledgement that nothing is infinite, nor should it be. It’s a commitment to ourselves and our stakeholders that we will throw everything at our big audacious goals. It’s an admission that the real value will be in how other businesses use and apply our methods and tools to take action.

Having such a clear goal also creates a daily reminder that we are part of something bigger – a system of brilliant thinkers, do-ers, leaders, businesses and communities. As individual businesses, we can take positive steps, in fact, consumers are looking to us to do this. But when we see ourselves as a larger system when we understand the specific value our business or industry can bring in tackling social and environmental issues, and when we focus on measuring and celebrating tangible action and collective impact over how to best PR our own vision – then we will see greater progress.

I’m not suggesting that every business should set an expiry date. But wouldn’t it be great if we stopped setting ourselves up to measure our success against unnecessary, infinite or exponential growth? Think about that, what would your business model look like if you knew there were only 57 years of oil production left? What would need to change in your business if independent media no longer existed? Or if the world was 2 degrees hotter? Or if we went totally ‘doughnut-distributive’ – and designed your business goals to meet the needs of many, within the limitations of the planet?

We’re inviting you all to D.O.A 2030. On December 31, 2030, you’re invited to come along to our final event, our official ‘black swan song’ if you will. You can register here.

Until then we will keep asking ourselves, and our clients…“What will you do?’, and ‘When will you do it?”.

Ebony Gaylor is the co-founder and managing partner at Decade of Action.