LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - The bosses of some of Britain's
biggest companies have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson,
urging him to embed the United Nations' Sustainable Development
Goals in its COVID-19 recovery plan.
Britain has already said it wants to ensure its economic
recovery plan is 'green,' mirroring similar plans in the
European Union and elsewhere, but it needed to make the
sustainable goals central to those plans, the letter said.
The SDGs were launched in 2015 and include a broad range of
targets to hit by 2030, including ending poverty, reducing
inequality and protecting the environment.
In the letter dated June 9 and seen by Reuters, leaders such
as Natwest Chief Executive Alison Rose and Schroders
Chief Executive Peter Harrison said the SDGs should be
used to prioritise the most vulnerable in society.
"The SDGs provide us with a framework which can help us
prioritise health and wellbeing, alongside prosperity and GDP,
as a measure of the nation's success," they said. "We need to
ensure that our recovery from the pandemic leaves no one behind
and puts the health and wellbeing of current and future
generations first."
The letter said "coherent policies" based on the UN
framework should help in the transition to a low-carbon economy,
and underpin a focus on the risks to society posed by the loss
of biodiversity and habitat.
"We recognise that the scale of recovery will pose many
challenges for the Government. But the COVID-19 crisis has shown
that businesses, government, and civil society can and will work
together to create lasting and positive change," the letter
said.
"We believe the SDGs should be used to establish the level
of ambition for the UK’s pandemic-recovery and a future that
ensures all people in our country live a good life, prospering
on a healthy planet."
(Reporting by Simon Jessop and Iain Withers, editing by Sinead
Cruise and Bernadette Baum)
Schroders (SDR)