The S in ESG – social sustainability – is one of the essential elements in a sustainable and regenerative world. Sustainability is not only green, yellow is the color for social sustainability.
Social sustainability focuses on people’s needs and their interaction. There are numerous standards and guidelines, from the SDGs to human rights and OECD guidelines to ISO 26000 and VSME. Let’s see the purpose and start designing. According to the motto “Walk the talk”, it is essential to translate our conviction and attitude into effective action. Shaping social sustainability is a management task. It works and it pays off!
The substantive topics that make up social sustainability have different characteristics depending on the perspective (state, society, companies, …). They range from the right to family life to the reconciliation of work and family life, from the right to education for adolescents to further training in companies, from access to health facilities for all to health at work and occupational safety. They deal with questions of integration and inclusion of societies and social groups. What they have in common, however, is the postponement and reduction of inequalities and the development of equal opportunities for all people.
Change cannot be done alone: “team work makes the dream work”. If we work well together and combine the diversity of our skills and competences, we can achieve great things for social sustainability. Thus, social sustainability stands for social responsibility. The social dimension is the foundation of sustainable development. Anyone who underestimates this foundation is “building on sand.”
Author: Mag. Christoph Wurm