Joining leading organisations to create a socially just and green recovery from COVID-19

PA, the consultancy that is bringing ingenuity to life, is a signatory on a letter sent to the Prime Minister, calling on his government to ensure the UN’s SDGs are at the heart of UK COVID-19 recovery plans.

The SDGs are a set of 17 ambitious pledges to overcome humanity’s greatest challenges by 2030. Challenges like clean water and sanitisation, affordable and clean energy, and responsible consumption and production. They can be used as a blueprint to help the government put the environment, health, and social justice at the heart of COVID-19 recovery plans in the UK.

PA’s work with public and private sector organisations includes enabling them to improve social and environmental sustainability. PA’s latest initiative with the United Nation’s Global Compact Network, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, was to produce a framework on how individual organisations can deliver breakthrough impact by putting the SDGs at the heart of their innovation processes. It provides step by step guidance on how innovation teams can use the SDGs as a lens to uncover sustainable product, service and business model opportunities.

The letter, coordinated by the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development and the United Nations Global Compact Network UK, asks that the SDGs be "used to consolidate and future-proof [recovery] plans".

Mark Lancelott, sustainability expert at PA Consulting, says: “Sustainability is still a business imperative. COVID-19 has focussed the world’s attention on critical priorities, but the global need for businesses to operate more sustainably remains core to a positive human future. The current disruption provides organisations with an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild and restructure to a more sustainable blueprint. But we need to act now and not let the opportunity slip away.

"Stakeholder expectations, investor scrutiny and the planet itself are demanding action in the here and now and not delayed to the future when a change will be that much harder. That is why PA Consulting is proud to join the call for a socially just and green recovery in response to COVID-19.”

Other signatories include Natwest Group, Nestle UK & Ireland, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, The Body Shop, HSBC, Standard Life Aberdeen, Mott MacDonald and Unilever; among others.