Investors Play an Important Role for Businesses Pursuing the UN Sustainable Development Goals
By: Mike Dutton
Tags: Impact Investing, Sdgs, Sustainable Development, Impact, B Corp

Sustainable Development Goals Where We Are Making the Most Progress

As shown in the graphic below, we are making the greatest progress through our portfolio companies on SDGs 3 (Good Health and Well-Being); 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action).

But what types of work are our portfolio companies doing to make progress? By combining initiatives that address multiple goals, several projects undertaken by these innovative businesses move the needle. For example, when a company works through the B Impact Assessment and makes positive changes within its supply chain, it often is addressing multiple goals, such as SDGs 8 and 12, at the same time. Holistic, business-wide goals and practices are the foundation for all of our and our portfolio companies’ work.

Here are a few ways several of the Builders Fund portfolio companies are making progress that stand out as innovative and structurally replicable in other organizations:

Urban Remedy, an omni-channel producer of healthy and organic food, has created more than 260 LMI jobs in the opportunity zone of Richmond, California. This year, they also helped launch a pilot program with Peres Elementary School in Richmond, and Conscious Kitchen, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing food equity and access in schools through the provision of local, organic, seasonal, and non-GMO lunches. The program is exploring the feasibility of providing healthy lunches to students on a regular basis at scale and serving healthy meals to the 550 students at the school.

Traditional Medicinals, the largest organic tea brand in the U.S., and its foundation staff work closely with communities in their 40-country supply chain on a host of issues related to sustainable development, education, health and agriculture. This year, for example, they worked with 600 individuals in farming communities in Paraguay to develop a project where participants sustainably source and harvest honey. After just one harvest, these households experienced a 3% increase in their annual household incomes.

Students attend lessons at a school built through the Revive! Project that B Corp Traditional Medicinals supports. (Photo by WomenServe)

Mixt, a chain of farm-to-table fast casual restaurants, works to foster a strong connection between community, employees, and healthy eating in each of its stores. Through holistic practices that focus on the whole person, Mixt is supporting customers and employees alike in achieving a healthy lifestyle. In 2018, Mixt served more than 1.8 million healthy meals to customers nationwide in addition to providing over 100,000 free shift meals to every employee each time they worked. In Mixt’s Oakland, California, location, customers connected through a shared experience of nourishing themselves and caring about what they put into their bodies. The Mixt model encourages customers and staff to be themselves and provides an opportunity for them to get to know their bodies through healthy eating. One Oakland customer described what Mixt provides to the community, “Fresh, healthy, minimize plastic, and yet you get a wide range of choices. Uptown’s restaurant scene needs a place for people to meet where they don’t have to regret what they ate the next day in order to see their friends.”

MPOWERD, a brand of smart solar lighting products, partnered this year with the Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation on Light Up PNG, a project that works with women entrepreneurs who have experienced marginalization, ostracization, or physical harm in their communities. In addition to providing safe housing and basic needs to women in acute need, the program offers entrepreneurial training and support for women to start their own microenterprise selling solar lights in their communities. To date, the program has benefited hundreds of women and their families, and increased access to renewable energy in and around their communities.