How the Sustainable Development Goals guide Barco's strategy

Sustainable business is high on Barco’s priority list. We want to grow our company and help our people and the communities around us, all while safeguarding the planet. A major foundation of our ambitions, are the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. But what exactly are these SDGs and how do we translate them into Barco’s corporate DNA?

The Sustainable Development Goals explained

The Sustainable Development Goals were defined in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly. All 193 countries in the UN General Assembly adopted this resolution. They consist of 17 global goals set to be achieved by 2030.. The 17 defined goals include plans to eliminate poverty, hunger and inequality, improve health, education and working conditions, and strive for sustainable cities and responsible production. If you want to know everything about the SDGs, please refer to the dedicated UN page: www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals.

Barco and the SDGs

We realize these goals cannot be met without support from the global business community. Our approach for supporting the SDGs is to focus on the goals where we can have the most impact, while screening and implementing actions that contribute to the other goals as well.

To identify the SDGs where Barco can make the most difference, we mapped the highly material topics of Barco with the 17 Goals. We have defined six SDGs that are closely linked to Barco’s materiality and the overall strategy:

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Measuring success

We measure our progress towards the SDGs using the SDG action manager. The action manager is a self-assessment questionnaire that helps organizations to evaluate their current performance on the SDGs. The tool also recommends the SDGs where a company has the most opportunity to contribute to the SDGs, based on the World Benchmarking Alliance's market analysis. For Barco, these are SDG7, 8, 9, 12 and 13. Barco’s 2020 scores on the six SDGs that are closely linked to our materiality and strategy are: