Let’s be clear: to date most businesses have barely registered the importance of working sustainably.

Back in 2001, when the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched to make global progress on reducing poverty and hunger, increasing access to education and health care, and decreasing our environmental footprint, it was assumed that foreign aid would finance these efforts, driven by governments, with the support of non-governmental organisations.

This was despite the fact that some of the MDGs could only be achieved in close cooperation with the private sector, such as improving access to affordable essential drugs and technology. As a corporate executive once told me, “there was just nothing in the MDGs that would have inspired us to engage.”