The Data Coordinator of Cepei, Fredy Rodríguez, was invited to participate in the Sustainable Development… Commitments of the Statutory Auditor? session, with a keynote presentation on the business sector and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Colombia.
For his initial statement, Rodríguez introduced the 2030 Agenda by mentioning that in 2015, 193 world leaders committed with its implementation. The purpose of the Agenda, he explained, is to build a more sustainable and prosperous world for all through a holistic conception that includes the social, economic and environmental dimensions, to fight against the eradication of extreme poverty, combat inequality and injustice, and find solutions to climate change
The Data Coordinator of Cepei pointed out that the Agenda is made up of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 targets and 242 indicators, which require the production of disaggregated, timely and quality data that supports their monitoring and measurement. For this reason, he stressed, the private sector is a key actor in the generation, transmission and reporting of data to implement and monitor the Agenda.
He highlighted that one aspect to consider in terms of data production to measure the SDGs are multi-stakeholder partnerships, which allow to strengthen technical capacities between actors. An example of this was the data reconciliation study that Cepei carried out together with the Bogota Chamber of Commerce, DANE and SDSN TReNDs to review the quality of data being reported by companies in the commercial register.
According to Rodríguez, data generated by companies is a relevant source that contributes to economic, environmental, political and social analyzes. However, he underlined that the information from companies that is available to the public is usually limited. Therefore, in 2018, within the framework of the Unidos por los ODS initiative, Cepei, as a technical operator, measured the contribution of a group of companies in Colombia to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
“21 companies from 7 different sectors participated in the activity, which together generated an operating income of 106 billion pesos and employed 107,325 people in 2017. Among the participating companies, were 8 of the 100 largest companies in Colombia.”
The findings of this study were presented in a general report that shows how companies impact sixteen SDGs (13 directly and 3 indirectly), he said.
Among the findings, the persistence of the wage gap between men and women stands out, which for this measurement was located at 2.3 minimum wages.
For the Data Coordinator of Cepei, “this exercise represents a milestone in SDGs measurement, given that it is unique in its kind and has become a point of reference for the promotion of other measurements within companies”.