What inner qualities can help us meet sustainability goals?

‍Picture taken by Michael Göthe

In 2015, all UN members agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals for a Better World. So far, progress has not gone at the pace that many had hoped for, and that has prompted the organization Inner Development Goals (IDG) Think about what it takes to make a big enough change.

- Global change starts with self, says Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School, in a filmed interview after the 2022 conference. Global change starts with each and every one of us making up our mind to be present, to care about each other and care about the future.

In 2022, the first conference was held and in October 2023 it was time for the sequel. The initiative comes mainly from Swedish actors in the field of sustainability, such as Lund University/LUCSUS, but also from Harvard University.

- Since we have not succeeded in reaching the 17 sustainability goals despite the fact that solutions sometimes exist, many of us point out that external change is not possible if we do not also work with our inner capacities, such as empathy, cooperation and dealing with complexity, says Birgitta Persson. What are our values, what is our view of the world and of ourselves? It is clear that we need to work on this as well when we talk about achieving sustainability goals because our actions are a reflection of our view of ourselves and the world.

The organisation has therefore developed the Inner Development Goals framework, which describes the inner skills we need to support sustainable development. In this framework, the different human competencies and skills that can be cultivated and trained are divided into five categories: Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating and Acting. This approach has met with widespread global interest and universities, companies and leadership consultants and coaches, among others, want to use the framework. The framework is now the subject of a global survey, where people from all over the world have the opportunity to stock up on traits and abilities that they consider important to drive sustainable development. Link to the survey. The survey has been translated into approximately 70 languages for the result to be valid globally.

In conjunction with the conference, the IDG Corporate White Paper was also published, which provides an overview of how internal development goals have been integrated in five partner organisations. The intention is to present strategies, challenges and results from the work with IDG done at Stena Line, Google, IKEA, Ericsson and Icebug. The hope is, of course, that the experience will inspire others to make similar changes.

- I followed with interest the lectures of the conference about companies being crucial in the transition, says Birgitta Persson. My personal reflection is that the big companies and organizations are key players. At the conference, it was clear that companies have a strong interest in this and that they want to be part of the solution. It is exciting to see through The White Papers what strategies companies can use to work with the framework in a systematic and concrete way.

Behind the initiative is World Business Council for Sustainable Development, International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lund University/LUCSUS, Stockholm Resilience Center/Stockholm University, The New Division, The Flourishing Network/Harvard University, 29k and Foundation Ekskär.

Around 2020, Lund University began to create a knowledge around what it calls Existential Sustainability, which is a perspective that deals, among other things, with the human need to experience and create meaning, which is often included as an important component of the other sustainability goals. In autumn 2023, a new course has also been offered to doctoral students at the research school Agenda 2030 to enable them to develop ideas about existential sustainability.

‍

Here you can read more about Lund University's work on existential sustainability:

Can cultural and creative industries make us understand societal challenges?

New course on the existential dimension of green transition

‍

Picture taken by Michael Göthe