The Global Sustainable Development Goals aren't just for saving the planet - they also help with quality management and professional standards

10 years ago the United Nations launched the global Sustainable Development Goals - a basket of 17 thematic aspirations that, if pursed well, will help see our common world a generally better place to live, work, and play for all of us (as well as those animals and vegetations that we also share the planet with too).

And in the year that followed, I redesigned the impact reporting framework I'd started to create for my own enterprise around it.

The goals, and my engagement with them in this way, have subsequently drawn ongoing interest and recognition - most recently from a new global special interest group who asked me to be their inaugural guest speaker. Specifically, the group is made up of facilitators who are all part of the global International Association of Facilitators, and who were keen to explore and understand different perspectives in how facilitators (one of the capes I sometimes don) have thought about how the Goals relate to their practice and profession.

As always, when I have opportunity to share some of my own story in this way, I try to deliberately pause to reflect on it afterwards. This post is therefore what struck me as being of most interest and encouragement from my side of the screen (but if you manage to join this interest group - links below, you'll also get to read other's take-ways to add to these):

Good ideas take time 

Most people who have a passing awareness with the Goals might know that they were launched in 2015. 

But they weren't officially adopted until 2016, the first guidance about reporting against them wasn't published until the year after that - and it took 3 years to even get to their launch point after the concept for them was first agreed and started to be explored in 2012.

So whatever your aspirations might be to create change; design new systems; and see people adopt new ways of working - take some consolation that it took the UN 3 years to get to the point of being able to start to get some early adopters to commit to adopt these Goals after they first started to talk about the idea of them.

You don't (and shouldn't try to) do it all

One of the few regrets I have in this life, is that I didn't buy all of the mugs I once saw in a shop window, with the message "you can't save everyone" printed on them.

The Goals are no different - they were never designed or intended to be adopted in their entirety by any single organisation. That's why I've focussed on working to 5 of the 17 Goals: it means I can hopefully be more credible in how I'm presenting myself in how I'm contributing to them (i.e. I'm not making what many would see as incredulous claims about how my different business offers are helping to improve the biosphere for life under the sea).

Altruism isn't (and shouldn't be) the only motivation for all of us that adopt the Goals 

As part of my reflections with the group, I'd mapped the Goals against the IAF's professional standards for facilitators. In doing so, it highlighted how taking a Goals-based approach to how you design and deliver your work very easily demonstrates how you're meeting and working to occupational and quality assurance standards - so there's also a clear direct business case for the Goals to be picked up, as well as an ethical/moral one.

My using the Goals helps others to contribute to their delivery

As my business model and ways of working are wrapped around the Goals, then the more I work, the more I'm delivering against them. Which means that whenever a client commissions me, I'll do more work = more delivery against the Goals.

I'm not aware that any client has ever engaged me solely on the basis of this, but it's an additional assurance I can offer them as to the wider benefits they get from using me as their consultant?

We don't usually think about how the Goals help us have better conversations about our role in local communities and the wider economy 

I was struck by how most people hadn't fully appreciated the wider importance of small and micro businesses, and how we can encourage and support these by trying to prioritise them in our own respective supply chains - despite us all bemoaning when a large employer closes their site, and the wave of unemployment this causes with the knock on effects to other businesses, families being able to remain in the area to find new work, etc.

The Goals prompt us to think about who we're doing business with, and how this in turn helps build more resilient local communities in the context of seemingly increasingly unpredictable economies and extreme weather events.

We're all already doing more than we realise

Through breakout room reflections, people shared a range of practices that they already used that were aligned with the Goals, but who hadn't realised the importance or impact of, before correlating them in this way. This meant people were more encouraged to continue and build on these models of working. And, within the framework of the Goals, they'll now be able to more easily share with others, as encouragement and challenge for them to consider doing similar.

If you'd like to know more about the conversations which are exploring how the Global Goals are being supported through the work of facilitators, please check out the IAF's Special Interest Group at: https://www.iaf-members.org/site/chapters/sustainable-development-goals

And a recording of the story sharing of my history with, thinking about, and approach to the Goals can be watched again via my YouTube channel:

why, as a freelancer I'm paying to offset my carbon footprint

My recently published impact report on myself introduced something new for the first time in the 16 years I've been doing it - commitments and targets to revisit and report against in next years (which will be due sometime in April 2023: watch out for the #AAimpact23 tag!).

Around this time I've also been leading a bootcamp for businesses who were wanting to do more around their environmental impact. And whilst they all started that journey thinking it would be the carbon footprint of their products, they all started to realise that in some instances the way that they ran their businesses was having a biggest cost to the environment than what they were selling to their customers.

And these two things came together around one of the KPIs in my impact reporting framework (which has also been one of the first measures I started using all those years ago...) - trying to consider my impact on the natural environment by tracking how far I've been able to avoid needing to make journeys 'in physical person', and so avoiding adding pollution from not needing to burn the fossil fuels that go into the petrol tank of a car, and the diesel for a train.

I've reflected on one of the unexpected outcomes of this practices and indicator in a previous blog - but I've caught myself increasingly asking 'so what?', against this measure: what's the point of measuring something if we don't do anything with the number it gives us (other than stroking our ego and vanity)?

So to this end, I've decided to use this metric to help me calculate the carbon footprint I'm creating when I can't avoid having to make physical travel to a client to deliver workshops, facilitate meetings, and such like. And with that tonnage figure, I'm then going to offset the carbon I've created by purchasing 'carbon credits' that can be used to invest in different projects and initiatives to try and 'rebalance the scales'.

But even now - so what? I'm a sole trader, and it's unlikely that the carbon footprint I generate from business travel will amount to anything remotely approaching significance in the context of other business'; and by association, what I'll pay to rebalance it will seem paltry in a global scale. So why should I bother? It'll only cost me more as a business, and won't have any meaningful impact on the environment.

The point, dear reader, is this - if we don't each take a stand and start to model the behaviours that we want to try and encourage and challenge others over in seeing a better world come about, then what credibility do we have to bemoan the state of the world? If we don't 'walk the talk', why should anyone else? And ultimately, if we resign ourselves to the mindset of "I'm too small to make any meaningful difference", just remember what's possible when 1 person stands up - it can inspire others to do the same, and so sooner or later, change happens. 

So in hopes of encouraging and challenging others in this endeavour, I'm going to start adding a rider to my client invoices and proposals: "any physical travel involved in the delivery of this work has been carbon offset at my cost as part of my commitment to helping to sustain our world for ourselves and future generations."  

the dilemma of reverting to my pre-pandemic business model of digital by default

In 2018 I made a deliberate choice to try and move to a 'digital by default' model for how I delivered all my work - which meant that when the lockdowns that defined 2020 came, I had something of a head start (which may be why so many bodies sought my support in helping them move all their delivery models to a similar on-line format).

And there were several reasons for this choice I made several years ago:

1. 
   it helped my desire to try to better manage / reduce my environmental impact, by reducing the amount of travel I needed to do (and although I've always prioritised public transport where possible for business travel, even trains and buses create pollution of sorts).
2. it meant I could increase my productivity by not having to factor in travel time to/from clients (and not needing to find ways to cover that time - after all, I'm not salaried), meaning that I'd be able to offer better 'value for money' to clients.
3. reducing the need for travel means I can be at home more, which means I can do more to support my family around their circumstances and needs.

All of which seemed eminently sensible when I committed to trying to work this way, but then the pandemic was upon us, and things have shifted, which now leaves me in a dilemma.

As part of their recovering their lives (and sanity) from the disruption and upheaval that Covid has wrought, most people seem to be desperate to meet in person again (almost to the point of fetishing the need to meet and undertake activities IRL).

But my business model that developed to deliver virtually seems to be working very well in a digital format:

• most people have found that they prefer to engage with learning and workshops I deliver on line, to the point that they don't want to go back to an in person physical classroom model when given the option;
• every Board and senior management team I've supported with facilitated planning of various types over 2020 and early 2021 are now committed to using an on-line format in the future, having experienced how well it can work for them with me;
• and in the year before the lockdowns, 3/4 of all my client activity was delivered virtually (a figure that was up over 20% on the previous year). 

But the lockdowns have also exposed that more people than we might have hoped are still struggling with on-line access through no fault of their own... (see here)

Some my dilemma - do I remain true to my values and the commitments I made in my business model 3 years ago and continue avoiding doing things IRL wherever I can, or do throw my lot in with others and be part of helping them recover what they feel they've lost by agreeing to start to spend more time away from home and family, and need to increase my charges to cover travel costs and time?

Answers on a postcard / or over a pint in the pub (but only if we've going to be near one together at the same time).

the impact of a pandemic on the impact we create

Some of you reading this will be aware that for the last 15 years, I've annually published an 'impact report' on my activities as a sole trader/freelancer - and each time I do, I try and pause to reflect here on some aspect of it that's particularly struck me.

Most businesses, charities, and social enterprises who are currently talking about the impact they've created through the pandemic, successive lock-downs, and the disruption to communities and people's lives over the last year, seem to be largely focussing on what they've done over this last year. Which is fine and proper, but it doesn't help us fully understand the wider, longer-term impacts of the pandemic on how we try and achieve our respective missions - only what our immediate responses to it have been.

But I've been using a consistent framework and measures in how I monitor, report, and reflect on, my impact for over a decade. That means that this year's impact report has allowed me to better explore just how far the disruption to how we work, think, and feel, has truly had on my practices - and as such, I'm better able to consider what changes I might need to introduce as we emerge into our brave new vaccinated world (and which I can politely pass on).

Spoiler alert: it seems the pandemic has had little (or as expected) effect on the metrics I use to capture the impacts I create across different themes.

But what I do find of particular note is:

tax paid: it's been already shown by others that in being self-employed, I already pay proportionately more tax on my income than my counterparts both on payrolls, and those taking their earnings as company Directors. But this year, the amount of tax I've paid has significantly increased - and tracking this back into the data shows that it's because I was fortunate to be eligible for some of the government's coronavirus business support schemes: but that support I received to help me sustain my business (and family) was always going to be subject to being taxed - so although it may have initially seemed I could have breathed a sign of relief when HMRC said I was eligible to apply for SEISS, I always knew that there'd be at least one painful sting in the tail associated with it...

grace: in my last impact report, I'd started to capture and monetise my 'grace': the amount of lost earnings I'd suffered due to people either forgetting that we had arranged to speak/meet, or cancelling training sessions with only a days' notice (with no recourse for me to claim any late cancellation fee). Perhaps the most distressing part of this year's impact report is not that this figure hasn't changed, it's that if anything, its actually increased. Which means that the respect we're showing each other in making sure we turn up (or phone in/log on) when we've agreed to, or at the very least, sending apologies in good time if we know we can't, is on the wane...

But there's lots of other things in this years report. It now runs to 11 pages, with 12 indicators, 3 charts, 3 tables, and a slew of summary case studies and testimonials - in the first year I created it, covering the year 2006-7, it only had 3 numbers and was a footnote in my corporate CV!

And you can view it in all it's glorious technicolour and images, here.

Therefore, please do take a look through it - I'd be keen to hear what strikes you about it as being of particular interest in help me better understand it myself, and to therefore continue to create as much positive impact as I can into the future.

A question of grace and bad debt...

I've recently published my 13th annual social impact report on myself - and as with previous years, continued to 'evolve' the framework by adding further indicators (specifically, in relation to how far I'm adopting working practices that reduce environmental impact). 

The framework I've developed is overall designed to reflect my values, but I'm wondering how far I should include additional indicators relating to 'grace', and more specifically, 'forgiveness'...

You see, businesses of all types will, at some point, face the prospect of having to deal with bad debt - a customer or client that either refuses to pay, or whose venture has become insolvent. In such circumstances, conventional wisdom decrees that we (as the people the debt is owed to) enact recovery processes: debt collection agencies, applications for court orders, striking them off our Christmas card lists, and such like. 

But sometimes, the people we've worked to support and now can't make good on the payments we've agreed, haven't made a conscious or deliberate choice to run their businesses into the ground, or to happily walk away from their dreams and ambitions with little care for the consequences. They're just as, if not more, upset than we are that circumstances have played out as they have and are simply trying to minimise the fall out (albeit that usually means by 'doing an ostrich' and hoping it all goes away by itself...).

In such instances, grace would seem to require that we at least consider the option of forgiving them their debt - not as a 'carry on and mess up other businesses' type approach, but rather as a measured and reflective conversation about how working relationships have been bruised, and helping all involved understand the cost that such a forgiveness of debt will entail (but the benefits it could also offer in the longer-term to all concerned as well). 

As a sole trader, my experiences of exercising grace in this way is 'quite painful' as I've no larger company or wider team of colleagues to help soften the hit of not now receiving the income I'd anticipated. I also need to work at least doubly hard to find additional work to replace the earnings I've lost and budgeted to receive, (earnings that help sustain my family, home, and other commitments).

So the question I'm grappling with is - when I exercise grace in this way, should I record and report it, as I do with other workings out of this value (such as the extent to which I currently report on the pro bono support I've given to various people and groups).

Would such open reporting simply encourage a culture of clients 'crying off' when they see that I'd be willing to forgive them their debt, or would it mean we can all start to have more grown-up and mature adult conversations about money, and the way in which we recognise and have responsibility for others through ensuring that we pay them what we owe?

setting goals shouldn't just be something for new year, but take a whole year (and involve the whole world)

Resolutions to be better, or try harder, are things that we all agree are a good idea, and we usually think about at the start of a new year. Or, in the case of organisations, when the latest set of financial accounts are prepared...

But having our attention on them for such a brief moment usually means that we let our commitment to them lapse. But what if we were constantly reminded and encouraged about them over the period of a whole year?

I'd like to think that's the premise behind the UN creating its global 'year of' campaigns - 12 months of dedicated campaigning and lobbying around specific themes and issues of global importance each year.

But strangely, despite the UN having created the 'global goals for sustainable development' framework, there's no designated year yet to help further push for their adoption into the mainstream and public consciousness...

As one of the many people who think that these goals are actually a rather good idea (so much so that I now use them as a frame for my annual impact report on myself), I'm supporting the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) call to the United Nations to create an International Year of Engagement towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and its framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in building more inclusive and engaging societies. I'm happy to support the call to help build awareness and focus attention on other aspects of an enabling environment, build capacity for engagement, and help support the achievement of the SDGs. To this end, I'm proud to be included as a supporting organisation in the IAP2 proposal to the United Nations calling for An International Year of Engagement.

So there - that's my cards on the table, and colours nailed to the mast - what about you..?