In the upcoming six or seven months, UN Member States will be deeply engaged in the final steps in securing an international agreement for the post-2015 development agenda. As we look forward, attention is shifting from “why it matters” to “how to get there.” How we get there will be the pivotal part of the conversation, as it will look at all the actors involved in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how to get them engaged and make them accountable.

To truly achieve the SDG goals and targets, the private sector needs to be included as an active and engaged partner. This post-2015 development agenda presents a historic opportunity to mobilize companies to advance common global priorities. There has been a clear message from the business community that they are ready and willing to participate. But how can private sector engagement be ensured in a successful way? How can we incorporate strong and meaningful private sector contributions in the SDG work streams?

There are several ways to realize the needed private sector contribution to the post-2015 development agenda. Here are four concrete and actionable suggestions:

1. Move beyond private sector financial contribution: There has been a lot of talk about private sector charitable contributions for the Means of Implementation and in the Financing for Development (FfD) process. But, let’s be more ambitious. Private sector financial contributions are not the only means of private sector support for sustainable development. The expected development returns from sustainable core business practice can far exceed the returns from private sector giving. For transformative impact at scale, we need to change core business practice to support sustainable development. Corporate reporting is the vehicle for greater business accountability and transparency. When corporations report on the impacts of their core business practices, and make them public to the world, they are making a ready commitment toward better, more equitable, ecological and sustainable business practice. In that light, the SDGs as well as the FfD process should include language that supports sustainability reporting as a driver for the private sector to change its practices around the world, with impact on a local scale.

2. Give the global partnership teeth: There is an acknowledgment that the global partnership was one of the weakest areas of the Millennium Development Goals. Strengthening that basis is essential for the inspiring post-2015 development agenda that we envision. This global partnership should include a strong link to the private sector and involve them, and the groups that represent them, in the implementation of the SDGs. The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and Global Users Forum for Data for SDGs are good examples of initiatives that pull together non-traditional partners to build common platforms that support the SDGs. In this regard, GRI has been working with the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) to bring the wealth of data from the private sector into the SDG process, and to national statistical bureaus.

3. Broaden the accountability framework to include business: The High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development (HLPF) has been given the mandate to conduct regular reviews on the follow-up and implementation of sustainable development commitments and objectives. While it is still unclear what the implementation and review framework will look like, the consensus seems to be that monitoring will be horizontal, so that Member States participate in “peer review.” However, the world has seen the influence that non-state actors – and in particular the private sector – have on human development, livelihoods, and the environment. While the responsibility for achieving the SDGs rests upon national governments, the accountability architecture should include bottom-up accountability. It should invite voluntary commitments from non-state actors, especially the private sector. The private sector should have the instruments and a forum where it can report on contributions to the SDGs. GRI, the UN Global Compact, and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development are working together on exactly this. The partnership is currently developing an implementation guide where companies can directly report on their SDG contributions by using existing, commonly used reporting indicators, developed under due process such as GRI’s G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

4. Actively support Target 12.6 on sustainability reporting: The Open Working Group on SDGs created a clear target for sustainability reporting by corporations. Target 12.6 calls on Member States to: Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle. This is a progressive step in leveraging reporting as a solution to achieving Goal 12, which is to encourage sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns. Target 12.6 encourages all Member States to find a national benchmark for how many companies are using sustainability reporting in their own countries. It also challenges them to think creatively on how to develop policies or incentives to achieve, and advance, a national strategy to advance this target. Member States should be inspired by Paragraph 47 of the Rio+ 20 Outcome Document, which acknowledges the importance of sustainability reporting and the role that governments play in promoting it. During the Rio+20 process, governments that shared the belief that corporate transparency is a key element of a green economy formed the Group of Friends of Paragraph 47, and rallied together to further uphold the idea with other governments and stakeholders. The intergovernmental negotiations for the post-2015 development agenda should also follow this model, and governments could choose to create the Friends of Target 12.6 to promote corporate transparency and accountability in the SDGs.

We have a clear image of what we want the world to look like post-2015. It is not a world that can be painted with one paintbrush and one color. It requires us all to hold our paintbrushes at the ready: government, civil society and business; the final outcome will be a collaborative and strong picture of which we can all can be proud. Let’s be innovative about the way we involve the private sector as real actors to achieve the SDGs. Let’s make sure that companies are held accountable for their impacts, and generate positive social, environmental and economic returns for the communities in which they operate.