The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations are likely not met by the target year 2030, if companies do not recognize and utilize the business opportunities inherent in them. 380 million jobs would be created and €10 trillion in business opportunities would be unlocked if SDGs were realized by 2030. At the moment, companies are not able to utilize this growth potential and higher educational institutions (HEIs) do not adequately support the competence building of future managers and policy makers for solving the world’s most urgent problems. Current training efforts of SDGs focus on awareness building only, not business opportunity recognition and economic development related to SDGs. Thus, an innovative and scalable curriculum and training material is needed.Knowledge Alliance for Business Opportunities in SDGs (SDG4BIZ) creates, tests and disseminates a curriculum and training material on recognizing and realizing the business opportunities in SDGs. An innovative pedagogical solution is created targeting both European HEIs and companies and delivered via project partners’ viable learning platform. The training addresses 60 most relevant business opportunities inherent in SDGs with 5 Modules: 1) shared value business opportunity recognition & specific opportunities in 2) food and agriculture, 3) cities, 4) energy and materials & 5) health and wellbeing. During the project (until 2023) 80% of teaching staff of Partner HEI’s (4) (1500 teachers) have been trained and impact has been measured. 30% (600) of teachers have integrated SDG business potential in their teaching. 115 companies have trained their staff (80 000) and 60% (48 000) of staff have taken the training knowhow for process and product development. By 2027, as a result of realizing these opportunities, the companies create new business focusing on SDGs and become more competitive as the curriculum is used by 200-500 of HEIs and 2000-5000 of European companies, enhancing growth.
The Knowledge Alliance for Business Opportunities in SDGs (SDG4BIZ)’s initiative is designed to create, test, and disseminate a multidisciplinary curriculum, training package content, online learning platform populated with content tailored to recognize and actualize the business opportunities embedded within the SDGs. This not only enhances the creativity, employability, and career prospects of students but also adds significant value for enterprises.
2030 faces significant challenges, primarily rooted in the underutilization of inherent business opportunities. The existing focus of SDG training efforts primarily revolves around awareness building, neglecting the crucial aspects of business opportunity recognition and economic development related to SDGs. This gap underscores the need for an innovative and scalable curriculum, accompanied by tailored training materials to bridge the existing knowledge and competence deficit.
<< Background >> 2030 faces significant challenges, primarily rooted in the underutilization of inherent business opportunities. The existing focus of SDG training efforts primarily revolves around awareness building, neglecting the crucial aspects of business opportunity recognition and economic development related to SDGs. This gap underscores the need for an innovative and scalable curriculum, accompanied by tailored training materials to bridge the existing knowledge and competence deficit. << Objectives >> The Knowledge Alliance for Business Opportunities in SDGs (SDG4BIZ)’s initiative is designed to create, test, and disseminate a multidisciplinary curriculum, training package content, online learning platform populated with content tailored to recognize and actualize the business opportunities embedded within the SDGs. This not only enhances the creativity, employability, and career prospects of students but also adds significant value for enterprises. << Implementation >> After analyzing the current state and best practices, we meticulously crafted an SDG curriculum and training package. This comprised five modules addressing 1) SDGs in business opportunity recognition and specific areas in 2) food and agriculture, 3) cities, 4) energy and materials, and 5) health and wellbeing. The online learning platform was enriched with content, translated into multiple languages. The consortium activities were disseminated to target groups. << Results >> The SDG4BIZ training contents prove highly pertinent for HEIs students, teachers, and company staff training on business opportunity recognition related to SDGs. The consortium outreached target groups through pre-pilot, pilot, and dissemination activities resulting in 1345 self-registrations on the online learning platform. Additional beneficiaries include non-registered students in the SDG4BIZ classes and approximately 147000 targets reached by dissemination activities.