Making a Difference on the SDGs
Episode 2: Making a Commitment
It’s hard to ignore the devastation the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to lives and livelihoods around the world.
With over 1.2 billion daily visits to the John Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, the world is desperately seeking answers. Where are the cases concentrated? How many deaths?
Concerns are building as the grip tightens on restrictions yet again here in Melbourne, and underneath it all lies one key question:
When will it end? Or rather, how will we get out of this?
For those of us who have been largely unaffected by the virus itself, we may remember this time as one of ‘forced resilience’, more than anything. One in which we so quickly learned to adapt to a world that demanded we act, act quickly, and commit to our people, our future, and ideally both, effective immediately.
When the Victorian outbreak first unfolded, Spatial Vision moved quickly to ensure the safety of our staff, clients and partners. As our remote operations began to take shape, we put our creative minds to the test in a bid to foster connection, communication and keep our SV spirit alive.
Four clear ambitions that guide our operations, service delivery and future partnerships (from our Statement of Purpose)
What we didn’t anticipate was the sheer clarity that would emerge from these new circumstances. Our long-standing desire to build a better future was only amplified by the increased uncertainty marking the global conversation. More broadly, the crisis had shone a light on the powers of location technology to cut through the noise and steer us towards real-world solutions.
With this, we decided it was time we made a commitment. As Managing Director Glenn Cockerton notes, “our workforce diversity, culture of safety and well-being, and genuine commitment to achieving sustained environmental and social outcomes, shape the values we live by and remain key drivers for Spatial Vision’s current and future success”.
“Our workforce diversity, culture of safety and well-being, and genuine commitment to achieving sustained environmental and social outcomes remain key drivers for Spatial Vision’s current and future success”
Summary of our Statement of Purpose
What followed was a rigorous process across our organisation to define what we believe our world should look like, and consider our collective contribution to that vision. The resulting product—our Statement of Purpose—is the living, breathing life-force behind our company and how we are working to achieve a better future.
A key component of our purpose statement surrounds our contribution to the acknowledgement and achievement of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As you can imagine, there is no one way to report on and improve upon your organisation’s impact on the SDGs. However, like any agile organisation, we are researching, testing and iterating as we go, and are documenting the journey for other organisations looking to work towards a more sustainable, equitable world.
To begin, our initial company SDG plan identifies four areas in which our organisation can contribute to the SDGs:
- Internal: Alignment in company operations and across value chains
- Customers: Alignment with our customers and encouragement to consider and incorporate SDGs
- Industry: Encouraging spatial industry to recognise and adopt the SDGs
- Global: Making a global commitment to contributing to SDGs and reporting against the Goals
Some of our first activities have involved working through steps outlined in the SDG Compass, covering a number of the aforementioned areas. We are eager to share our progress and results in future episodes, so if you’re interested in aligning your organisation with the SDGs, or are hoping to work through a similar process, stay tuned.