If you’re at the point where you’re trying to find a forever job — one that will secure your financial future — we have a suggestion. Several suggestions, in fact.

If you want to work in the grocery business and you live in the Southeast, check out Publix Super Markets. If you’re in the Mountain States, see whether there’s a WinCo Foods around.

Or suppose you’re in construction. In Dallas, contact TDIndustries, a big mechanical contractor. In St. Louis and elsewhere, look up McCarthy Building Companies. In California, check out Swinerton.

What about manufacturing? New England residents should look at Hypertherm, headquartered in New Hampshire. Or Web Industries, based in Massachusetts.

All these companies have one thing in common: they’re employee owned. Get a job there, and—after a probation period—you, too, will be an owner.

The companies we just named, moreover, are only the tip of a good-sized iceberg. All told, there are more than 6,000 enterprises in the U.S. that are substantially or wholly owned by the people on the payroll. They’re in every state of the union and in most industries.

These companies have what’s known as an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, which is a kind of retirement plan. Employees of ESOP companies generally get shares in the business every year they work for the company. Those shares come at no cost—they’re a benefit, paid on top of your wage or salary. The ESOP holds your shares in trust until you leave or retire.

The financial magic of ESOPs

The magic here is that those shares typically increase in value as a company grows. Put that value hike together with more shares every year, and you’re talking real money. At WinCo Foods and other companies, some hourly employees have retired with more than a million bucks. Right now, the average worker in U.S. companies with ESOPs has $132,000 in a retirement account. Long-timers are likely to have considerably more.

Sound good? There’s more. ESOP companies typically take ownership seriously. They’re more likely than others to treat you like an owner: sharing information with you about the business and soliciting your ideas for on-the-job improvements.

By the way, these are not mom-and-pop operations. Most ESOP companies are thriving businesses with dozens or hundreds of employees. The biggest, Publix, has more than 200,000 workers. Fortune magazine has named it a great place to work every year since 1994.

So here’s what to do if you want to be an owner as well as an employee:

Learn more about ESOPs. The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), a nonprofit headquartered in Oakland, California, has a lot of good introductory material, including a colorful free booklet called “Employee Ownership: Building a Better Economy.” It describes how the whole thing works.

Explore the ESOP Map of the U.S., provided by the NCEO. The map shows ESOP companies throughout the country, color-coded by industry. It’s fully searchable; you can zoom in on any region you like and find ESOP companies.

Research those businesses and see whether any of them fit with your skills and interests. Be warned: ESOP companies tend to have much lower turnover than other businesses, so it can be hard to get hired. But now is a great time to be looking. And if you show the company that you’re knowledgeable about employee ownership and interested in becoming an owner, you’ll have a leg up.

If you can’t find any fits with ESOP companies, don’t give up: many companies have other programs that provide employees with stock or stock options. If you have marketable skills, you’re in a strong position right now to get the kind of job you want. Ask the interviewer whether the company shares stock or offers option grants, and if so, whether the awards go to everyone on the payroll or just a few top executives.

The bottom line

Most Americans expect to be wage earners all their lives. That’s not so bad if you’re a high earner, like a doctor or a data scientist. But many people’s wages have been stagnant for decades, and raises in recent years haven’t kept up with inflation. If you want to build a secure future with a great forever job, you’re better off being an owner, not just a hired hand.

A leading innovator in the insurance space is a B Corporation called Lemonade. This startup insurer builds its business on a give-back system that allows customers to select nonprofits that receive any unused premiums.

Lemonade Cofounder and CEO Daniel Schreiber says donating that money rather than keeping it as profit has produced more than $1 million in donations in 2020 (and over $2.3 million in 2021). It’s a practice that he says goes against the industry’s traditional relationship with customers.

“I don’t think about what we’re doing as being charitable in the traditional sense of the word,” he says. “We do give money to charity, we do partner with charities, and in so doing, we are solving an absolute business challenge, which is that insurance companies are deeply distrusted.”

Lemonade has built trust with customers looking for a new way to insure their homes and lives. Schreiber says Lemonade’s intention to do insurance differently gets at the conflict inherent in the product. 

“There is an asymmetry of power: You’ve given me the money; I have it. You feel disadvantaged because it’s not a level playing field. I’ve been collecting your premiums for the last ten years, and now you’re trying to get them out. There is an asymmetry of information: You don’t really know what the policy says; I do,” he says. “That’s what we were contending with in founding Lemonade: How do you create a trusting and trustworthy brand in a domain where the business fundamentals are designed for conflict of interest?”

While launching Lemonade, Schreiber talked with a Nobel Laureate in game theory and another with a Nobel Prize in behavioral economics. “We ultimately concluded that the problem isn’t with the players; it’s with the game. There’s something structural about insurance that produces these predictable results,” he says. “The fundamental problem is I make money by denying your claim. So I have a fundamental interest in you not being paid. I’m simplifying things, but it’s a zero-sum game: One of us is going to be $1,000 richer, one of us is going to be $1,000 poorer, and so long as that’s the case, there’s a problem.”

Schreiber says incorporating a new component — the Giveback program — serves as a game-changer. “By adding a nonprofit to the room, we change the very fundamentals of the dynamics and other incentives. We tell you upfront that our profit is not going to depend on how many claims we pay,” he says. “If there’s money left over, it will go to a charity of your choice. That changes my incentive because I don’t make money by denying your claim.”

Like Burnham Benefits, Lemonade shows that it’s possible to incorporate a stakeholder-minded and profitable way of doing business in a traditional industry and find a receptive and appreciative customer audience. “I think people should work hard at creating that kind of win-win,” Schreiber says. “It’s good to be able to build a business model where the act of giving something to the wider community isn’t at the expense of your shareholders.”

Although it shouldn’t be, fundraising for female entrepreneurs can be more challenging than for their male counter parts, and unfortunately, it just seems to be getting worse (according to Harvard Business Review, 2021).

In 2020, female entrepreneurs secured only 2.3% of VC funding, down from 2.8% in 2019 (mainly due to COVID). According to a 2017 Fortune article, in 2016, venture capitalists invested $58.2 billion in companies with all-male founders, while women received just $1.46 billion. The discrepancy is due both to investors give less money less often to women; as female entrepreneurs, it’s a fact we must overcome. 

Because Female entrepreneurs receive only about 2% of all venture funding, despite owning 38% of the businesses in the country, securing funding as a female entrepreneur is statistically grim (Fortune, 2017).

Difficult as it may be, it is definitely not impossible. As a female founder that raised $2 million in funding in two rounds, (one round that closed in 3 days) here are 5 tips that helped me through fundraising for my small business.

1. Everyone loves a good story.

Story telling is how we make connections, and connections are part of how you secure funding. That means your pitch to investors is a crucial aspect of fundraising. It should tell the story of you and your business and have an emotional hook that will draw them in. Your pitch should make them want to be part of the company. 

All that said, knowing your audience well will tell you how to tell your story. Is the group you’re pitching to passionate about investing in women? Push the female founded story. Are they interested in tech innovation? Gear your story toward how you’re changing the landscape in tech. By catering to what they’re looking for, they’ll be more likely to build a connection with you, and therefore invest in your company. 

2. It’s all about mindset.

You’re not asking for charity; you’re bringing them an opportunity. Reframe the idea of feeling bad for asking people for money to feeling generous that you’re giving them an incredible opportunity to bring value to themselves and others. Reframing how you’re approaching the conversation will not only bring confidence to your pitch, but it will show the investors that you’re giving them the chance to be a part of something great and worthwhile.  

Having a confident, optimistic mindset is a powerful tool that can help you achieve your goals. If you’re fearful of raising capital, remember that the only way out is through. Stepping through your fear and preparing and perfecting your pitch will ease the stress. I know if I’m unprepared, my mindset is less confident and I’m more stressed. 

3. Ask for double.

Plan, forecast, and get a good grasp on what you think you’ll need to launch or grow your business. Then double it. The forecasts, despite the best planning, are usually never right on, and unexpected setbacks will always happen. Plan for contingencies and disasters, because Murphy’s Law is all too real, and whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. 

Asking for double helps ensure that you won’t fail with the money you did secure because there was too little of it. Additionally, it prevents going back and asking for more capital too quickly after the first round. 

4. Good money vs. bad money.

Taking money from someone is a commitment, to say the least. Don’t take money from just anyone because any investment is a long-term engagement. Just like dating, there’s good and bad out there, and you have to make sure they’re the “one” before signing to any terms. You don’t want to be desperate and make the wrong move for your business by taking bad money. Holding out for the right investors is worth it in the end because the investment will be on mutually agreed upon terms that serve both of you. Knowing where your money is coming from and what the expectations are sets you up for a trusting relationship with your investors—and trust is key. You don’t necessarily want your investors calling you every week asking for an update on financials. When your investor’s core values align with yours as a leader, they will better understand how and why you make decisions for the company. 

5. Stick to your terms.

Setting your terms and not changing them was some of the best advice I received when raising capital. When you get in that room with each investor, they try to change the terms, so it better serves them, naturally. Setting and sticking to fair, reasonable terms that you’re confident in is imperative— you should have no problem having confidence in and sticking to terms that are fair for each party. 

Fundraising is difficult, and fundraising for females even more so, as attested in studies above. Following the aforementioned 5 tips helped me tremendously, and I know it can assist other female entrepreneurs out there hoping to scale their business and do what it takes to build a company.

You may not realize it, but your employees and coworkers struggle with medical debt. 

The situation has become dire in the US. “About one in five Americans currently has medical debt in collections,” writes Dr. Marty Makary in The Price We Pay. “Half of patients with certain medical conditions, such as women with stage 4 breast cancer, now report being harassed by a collections agency for their medical bills.” It’s healthcare oppression.

As CEOs of companies that are investing in our employees’ healthcare, we have a responsibility to demand better. The status quo is not OK. You’re not getting a return on your healthcare investment, and some of your employees are suffering when they access the healthcare system by incurring massive debts. 

If you think your health coverage is protecting your employees from medical debt, about three-quarters of medical debt is caused simply by deductibles and the patient’s out-of-pocket expenses. In addition, regardless of the industry you’re in, your company can help stamp out the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. So not only is it the right thing to do, but it also makes business sense. Here are actions business leaders can take to address this issue.

Create a medical debt relief program for your employees

The first step is to protect your employees from medical debt. For example, say your company spends $500,000 a year on health insurance premiums. If you set aside another $50,000 per year to address medical debts incurred by your employees and their dependents, you can likely shield them from bills they can’t afford.

You’re already responsible for your employees’ health care. Why not take that further to ensure they aren’t left with a huge bill? Doing so will strengthen your connection to your employees and help them be more productive and happy.

Hold your vendors accountable

In addition to saving your employees from crushing bills, covering their medical debts will give you insight and information about the gaps in the health insurance you’re providing to your team. Then, use that information to demand better from your health plan, benefit consultants, and other vendors that supply your coverage.

For example, a company like Google spends an estimated billion dollars a year on its 100,000 employees and dependents. And they have no idea who’s suffering from medical debt. Using $10 million to fund a medical debt relief program would help suffering employees with medical debt and get them that information, which they can take directly to their health plan.

Imagine the head of benefits sitting with a health plan executive and saying, “These 100 people owed $1 million last year in medical debt for these ten reasons. I expect an answer tomorrow on why this happened.”

What’s that person going to say? They better get the answer. And if the answer isn’t good enough, this employer should take their billion dollars elsewhere. The bottom line is they’re buying a product that isn’t performing as promised.

Don’t accept excuses. Tell your health plan, “Oh, you didn’t have an anesthesiologist in the network in southern California when this person got in a car accident? How is that my problem? And it’s definitely not that person’s problem. You said you had a robust network. That’s what I pay for.”

Lower your healthcare costs

While large employers have leverage in the marketplace, smaller companies’ voices are not always heard. That should not be the case. No matter your size, you can lower your healthcare costs without compromising the quality of care and use those savings to fund a medical debt relief program for your employees.

For example, it is possible to negotiate better contracts with PBMs to lower prescription costs. In addition, there are solutions available to mitigate the massive price tag of specialty drugs for conditions like hemophilia. You can create a custom cash price network that provides a lower cost on prescriptions outside of insurance for the drug categories your employees use most.

Health plan renewals are often presented as if there are no options or flexibility. Make sure you ask the right questions and do your due diligence so that your partnership with your benefits consultants can bring costs down instead of seeing them rise every year.

Don’t accept the blame

If you get sick and go to the hospital, and you’ve been paying health insurance premiums for the last 15 or 20 years, and you end up with a bill for $10,000 because you needed care, how is that fair? How is that your fault?

Right now, business leaders and consumers are letting the players in the healthcare system blame patients for medical debt. Even the term “medical debt” implies wrongdoing. I prefer “medical oppression” or “healthcare profiteering.” This is the healthcare industry’s problem. It created it. It profits from it. Everyone in the healthcare industry needs to work together to find a solution. Employers and patients are innocent.

Changing this dynamic starts with learning the language and the system. If you’re in charge of a business, don’t let the complexity of the healthcare system scare you off. The complexity is part of the game. Those responsible for healthcare oppression count on you getting overwhelmed and giving up.

Instead, find an ally. Find people that will talk to you in straightforward, plain language and who will be transparent and clear. If you’re not getting that today, you can assume you’re not getting a good value on your healthcare investment, which is an investment in your employees and business.

Suppose you’re a CEO and don’t know how many of your employees suffer from medical debt. In that case, you have a significant blind spot on their well-being and the social determinants of health for your organization. I would challenge you to be proactive about gathering information and addressing this issue. If business leaders continue to ignore it, it will only get worse.

Still psychologically scarred, few were keen last month to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Dow’s rock bottom close in March 2009. 

Even so, all month long, calls to heed lessons from the last great recession echoed across the media as ominous signs pointing to another pending financial crisis loom. In late March, the US Department of Commerce revised growth forecasts downward. Growth across major European economies is either slowing or negative. And the Chinese economy, a critical global growth engine, is decelerating.
We can, however, dispense with platitudes about remembering the past or being doomed to repeat it.

The fact is we aren’t set to relive a recession like that of 2008. The next great recession is likely to unfold in a manner fundamentally different from the last one.

Unilateralism, fragmented regulatory bodies and a depleted arsenal of tools for reviving growth will mean that the next recession is likely to be more prolonged and more devastating.

Few experts would claim regulators have implemented sufficient protections against the banking practices culpable in the 2008 crisis. But even if we had learned from past mistakes, the financial institutions and instruments requiring oversight are evolving at an unprecedented rate, becoming increasingly complex.

The Bank for International Settlements has raised concerns about the proliferation of shadows banks – a sector which, according to a report last year from the Financial Stability Board, grew by nearly 8 percent globally to more than US$45 trillion in assets. They warn that existing macroprudential policies were designed with traditional banking institutions in mind, and thus permit shadow banks to operate with little relevant oversight.

Regulation is equally ill prepared to oversee many innovative financial instruments reshaping the industry. Fintech platforms, which determine creditworthiness through algorithms rather than credit scores, are often not subject to the same rules as banks, and may often operate in the absence of interest rate limits altogether.

Such novel institutions and instruments present features that are unfamiliar, and that require an evolving set of policy responses. This, in turn, necessitates integrated, cooperative regulatory bodies with streamlined information-sharing practices that allow regulators to stay abreast of developments.

Alas, global regulatory bodies remain far too fragmented. The US, for instance, has three federal bank regulators and two market regulators that often compete instead of cooperating. Meanwhile, the vice-chair of the supervisory board of the European Central Bank admitted last year that Europe’s regulators remain too fragmented to effectively supervise.

Moreover, post-2008 calls for central banks to play a more vigilant role have paradoxically led them to focus inward and neglect collaboration at the international level. This lack of communication and collaborative action hinders regulators’ ability to police practices – and when the next crisis occurs, these disconnects will impede attempts to mitigate damage.

After Lehman Brothers collapsed, central banks worldwide simultaneously reduced interest rates. In the months that followed, governments would take recourse to this time-tested monetary tool to combat the recession, using rate cuts to encourage borrowing and spending. Such expansionary monetary policies are battle-proven and, in tandem with prudent fiscal policies, they enabled central banks to slowly restore the global economy to health. The hard truth, however, is that governments won’t have this weapon at their disposal this time around.

In the wake of the 2008 crisis, rates across the world were cut to zero, and the fragile recovery has kept them there. For much of the world, including the US and Europe, very low to near-zero rates mean historically little leeway for lowering.

Fiscal stimulus could provide an effective alternative. But increased government spending faced stiff opposition during the last recession and is likely to confront more during the next. For advanced economies, the average government debt is now worth more than 100 per cent of gross domestic product, up 30 per cent since 2007.

If near-zero interest rates and a lack of information-sharing will impede and blind regulators, hopes of reversing a downturn will rest on a multilateral global response.

In 2009, collaboration helped avert disaster as Group of 20 nations pledged to borrow and spend what they could, and to abstain from new tariffs. But today’s political landscape is characterized by discord and economic nationalism – and joint action seems far less likely. Without communication and concerted action, the next crisis is likely to prove far more intractable.

Central banks and governments must share information and align strategies. They must once more promise not to throw up tariffs or depreciate their currencies. If, at the moment of crisis, politicians will be too wary to support fiscal stimulus, governments should work together now to devise mechanisms automatically triggering spending increases at the onset of turmoil. Also, to help maintain sufficient demand, governments should work with private firms to make wage increases of 5 to 10 percent manageable.

To achieve such reforms, we’ll need more than the support of the IMF, the World Bank and Bretton Woods – bodies too often steered by politics and national interests. Depoliticized private-sector global leadership forums, inviting people not just from business and politics, but from non-profits, religious communities and social ventures, may succeed in shaping solutions that forgo self-serving interests. Such forums, however, are at best symbolic as long as they do not hold themselves to the highest standards.

Financial services are important because they help us start businesses, create economic flow, and bring communities together by facilitating transactions with those around us.

More meaningfully, they allow us to invest in a better future for ourselves and our families. Right now, there are over two billion people who do not have access to financial services. Their opportunities are limited in every way. BitMinutes is changing that by providing a widely accessible financial platform to over four billion mobile phones.

CLICK HERE FOR A SPECIAL REAL LEADERS SUBSCRIPTION OFFER FOR AKON SUPPORTERS: 60% OFF! USE CODE “AKON60” AT CHECKOUT

Why Are Universal Prepaid Minutes Groundbreaking?

BitMinutes (BMT’s) break down barriers between telecommunications ecosystems. These universal prepaid minutes can be exchanged between friends and family and used to top off mobile phones worldwide, regardless of carrier. By unifying all mobile phone users in areas serviced by BitMinutes and allowing them to conveniently engage in buying, selling, and trading BTM (And, consequently, Akoin), BitMinutes ensures consistent community adoption.

Prepaid minutes are rapidly becoming an informal currency of exchange between people and organizations in developing countries like Nigeria and the Philippines. People use the minutes to make calls, but they also settle small debts or pay utility bills in places where utilities accept bill payment via mobile phone.

A mobile phone operator’s prepaid minutes are only good for use within their ecosystem. In places like Kenya where one mobile operator dominates, that is less of an issue. However, in most countries, the mobile phone market is fragmented. Having a universal prepaid minute, like the BMT, massively upgrades the value and usefulness of prepaid minutes as an “informal” currency of exchange.

In Nigeria, BMTs have an additional value that will soon be available in more countries: BMTs may be converted back into cash to be deposited into a bank account. No other prepaid minute has that ability! That immediate convertible value means there is less risk for BMT purchasers to buy and save BMTs in their mobile wallet for future use.

CLICK HERE FOR A SPECIAL REAL LEADERS SUBSCRIPTION OFFER FOR AKON SUPPORTERS: 60% OFF! USE CODE “AKON60” AT CHECKOUT

Holding BMTs for Future Use Earns Rewards Via Mobile Mining

As an additional incentive, BMT purchasers who hold their tokens in their wallet or account also earn extra BMTs as rewards whenever they use their BitMinutes app or their online account. Each day, when a BMT holder opens his or her account, they will receive a bonus which could add up to 1% of their current account balance each month (over 12% annually.)

This mobile mining activity rewards loyalty and is designed to encourage BMT ownership because maintaining a BMT balance will serve as collateral for microloans, a service that BitMinutes and Akon are building to encourage grassroots entrepreneurship in developing economies. BMT ownership and management will also play a key role as one element of a dedicated credit scoring algorithm for residents of under-served economic communities.

Facilitating more economic activity and opening up more avenues for economic entrepreneurship in developing economies is the key to breaking barter-based cycles of poverty that keep these communities from acquiring wealth. “People with aspirations cannot access capital they need to launch local businesses or build on a promising start-up opportunity. Even small amounts of funding are crucial.

What BitMinutes Means for the Akoin Platform

At Akoin, we’re excited to integrate BitMinutes’ new mobile mining feature and incredibly eager to facilitate exchange between prepaid cell phone minutes (a commodity our communities are already comfortable trading) and the Akoin currency. BitMinutes’ stability and convertibility into cash  will create immense value for Akoin users.

As businesses with a mission to do good become increasingly trendy, social entrepreneurs said they were finding it harder than ever to tackle one of their major problems – explaining what they do.

For years social entrepreneurs trying to solve a wide range of issues from affordable healthcare to homelessness have faced the same question: are you running a charity or a business?

There is no universally accepted definition but a social entrepreneur can be described as someone who applies commercial strategies to tackle social and environmental problems and can operate as a for-profit or not-for-profit businesses.

A Thomson Reuters Foundation poll in 2016 found almost 60 percent of social enterprise experts in the 45 biggest economies said there was a lack of public awareness about their work which made it harder to raise funding and sell products and services.

While the sector has continued to grow in recent years with rising interest from socially-conscious consumers, some of the 1,200 people at Britain’s top social entrepreneurship conference this week said this had made explaining their work even harder.

Cassandra Staff, chief operating officer at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, a U.S.-based training scheme at Santa Clara University, said as social entrepreneurship became trendy, there was more confusion about its definition.

“There has been a lot of conflation within the definition as it has become more trendy, and fragmentation as everyone tries to work out what it means to them,” she said on the sidelines of the 16th annual Skoll World Forum in Oxford.

The confusion “just increases the complexity of barriers to entry”, she said.

GROWING CONFUSION

Over the past decade the sector has surged but so has the confusion, said leading social entrepreneurs.

Social sector organizations account for more than 5 percent of economic output in several nations, including Canada, Germany and the United States, according to the British Council, a partly state-funded body that promotes British culture overseas.

The Big Issue Group, one of Britain’s leading social enterprises tackling homelessness by producing and selling street newspapers, regularly gets mistaken for a charity, said Nigel Kershaw, its executive chairman.

“It’s often an assumption when you are doing something for the people and the planet you must be a charity,” said Kershaw on the sidelines of the four-day Skoll Forum in Oxford.

He explained this created a problem because the Big Issue aimed to build self esteem in the homeless vendors who sell its magazine. If it gave money to them instead, like a charity, it would be “perpetuating a dependency”.

Precious Lunga, co-founder of London and Nairobi-based Baobab Circle – which uses mobile and artificial intelligence technology to improve healthcare – said investors tend to see the social enterprise as a charity while users viewed it more as a business.

“There is no collective understanding about what a social enterprise is because it encompasses a wide range of types of organizations from non-profit to for-profit,” she said.

“Many of my contemporaries see themselves as entrepreneurs first.”

For Carenx Innovations, an Indian pregnancy care social enterprise, this confusion made it more challenging to attract funding from investors who might not realize it wanted to grow.

“People feel we are a charitable organization and that is one of the difficult parts – we have to emphasize and explain what is our social component and what is our business component,” said Shantanu Pathak, the co-founder.

Social entrepreneur Victoria Hale in 2000 founded and ran the first not-for-profit pharmaceutical company in the United States, One World Health, which develops drugs for poor people.

The pharmaceutical sector is mostly made up of profit-driven businesses so her social enterprise model bucked the trend.

“I learned to walk away from 80 to 90 percent of the people who questioned me and challenged me in relation to why I was starting a non-profit pharmaceutical company,” she said.

She said the concept of social enterprise has taken a while to catch on in the United States.

“There is a lot of explaining to do,” she said.

By Sarah Shearman @Shearmans. Editing by Belinda Goldsmith 

Nasdaq Iceland has welcomed the City of Reykjavik as its first green bond issuer on the Exchange’s sustainable bond market. The bond was issued on 17 December and is sized at ISK 4.1 billion with a maturity of 30 years. Reykjavik intends to issue further bonds in the bond class in the coming years and add market making services.  

The purpose of the issuance is to finance the City of Reykjavik’s green investment projects in accordance with the Green Bond Framework. Green bonds can only be used to finance projects within the Green Bond Framework that meet strict requirements. Some of these investments, that could meet the requirements of the Green Bond Framework, include pedestrian and cycle pathways, introduction of LED lights for street lighting and electric vehicle charging stations.

“This is a milestone for Reykjavik.”, says Dagur Eggertsson, Mayor of Reykjavik. “Our aim is to constantly strengthen our position as a green city which will be carbon neutral by 2040. We approved the Green Bond Framework where CICERO (Center for International Climate Research) rated the overall assessment of the project types that will be financed by the green bonds Dark Green and the overall assessment of the governance structure of Reykjavik got the rating of Excellent. I’m also very happy about the anticipation and interest we have received from investors. That is indeed a very promising start for this project and for us to become a sustainable city.”

Sustainability is fast becoming a key driver of economic success for countries and cities and the City of  Reykjavik’s first green bond issuance is a step in the right direction. “This marks the first listing on Nasdaq Iceland’s sustainable bond market. Given the great interest the issuance received we look forward to building this market for green bonds. It’s an honor to welcome our capital city to lead the way on our sustainable bond market,” said Magnus Hardarson, the Head of Exchange Trading and Listing Services at Nasdaq Iceland.

Business reporting on the impacts and contributions to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is set to become less complex following the launch of a new report – Business Reporting on the SDGs: An Analysis of the Goals and Targets.

Developed by GRI and the United Nations Global Compact, with the support of PwC, as part of a three-year initiative established to encourage and assist corporate reporting on the SDGs, the report aligns with companies’ regular reporting cycles as they work towards their SDG objectives.

Launched at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2017 during the UN General Assembly in New York this week, the Analysis provides an inventory of possible disclosures per SDG at target level and is a first step towards a harmonised set of indicators and methodology for business to report on. Launching in January 2018, its sister document, A Practical Guide to Defining Priorities and Reporting, will offer a structured approach to help businesses prioritise and report on relevant targets, using the Analysis to drive action.

Thousands of companies use the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards in their sustainability reporting, and 75% of businesses participating in the UN Global Compact initiative have confirmed their intention to contribute to the SDGs in 2017.¹  With investors increasingly interested in directing funds towards businesses that are leading the way on responsible business practices, transparent and effective reporting has never been more vital.  The Business and Sustainable Development Commission estimates that delivering on SDGs could generate up to US$12 trillion in revenues and savings as a result of new opportunities and efficiency gains. ²

Lise Kingo, CEO & Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, said: “The SDGs provide a unique opportunity to elevate communication on sustainability. The expectations on companies are huge. The UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, and GRI, the world’s leading organization for sustainability reporting, are very excited to take up this challenge.

“Our ambition is for business to use only one common standard for reporting on their performance on the SDGs, in line with the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact.” 

Tim Mohin, Chief Executive of GRI, added: “At a time when the revenues of large companies exceed the GDP of many countries and supply chains stretch around the world, the private sector plays a vital role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The document launched today represents an important step towards a unified mechanism to help companies report on the SDGs in a comparable and effective way.  By reporting on their progress, companies will improve their performance, which will enable meaningful progress towards achieving the SDGs.”

There is currently no single methodology for measuring and reporting business progress and impacts on the SDGs, with most firms using reporting standards that predate the ambitious goals agreed by over 150 world leaders at the UN Summit in New York in 2015. Indeed, when the SDGs were adopted two years ago, only 13% of business leaders³ felt they had the necessary tools available to engage and report on the goals.

The Analysis and Practical Guide reports will pave the way for the development of a single mechanism and set of indicators, and therefore also the aggregation of relevant data across companies, enabling stakeholders to compare company information.  Anchored in current reporting processes, they will also help businesses to better engage and communicate their contributions to the SDGs with governments and inform their sustainability reporting at a national level.

Wider stakeholder engagement has been an important part of the initiative: the three organizations consulted with representatives from more than 70 stakeholders, including over 35 leading businesses across the globe, to help inform the analysis.

As Malcolm Preston, PwC’s Global Sustainability Leader, explains, this multi-stakeholder movement will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of corporate reporting on the SDGs:

“The SDGs have ushered in a new era of global development objectives aimed at addressing the world’s most pressing problems from job creation and education to social and health protection while tackling climate change and environmental protection.

“But while it’s widely acknowledged that active participation from business is key for achieving the SDGs, no common practices for corporate reporting had been established. Transparency is becoming a basic requirement for conducting business and we’re proud to have played a pivotal role in this ground-breaking research and international stakeholder engagement. It not only contributes to a common SDG language but will help direct innovation, strategic leadership and capital towards achieving these vital goals.”