The director of the Croatian Business Council for Sustainable Development, Mirjana Matesic, said an international survey of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicates that Croatia is in the upper third with regard to meeting sustainable development objectives. Croatia, measured by the SDG Index, ranks 39 among 149 countries encompassed in the survey.
"Globally looking, we can be satisfied, however, the survey shows that there are shortfalls in the goals of global partnership and gender equality. Weaknesses were identified with the objective of developing infrastructure and economic growth, that is, sustainable production and consumption and that relates to areas to which the economy can and has to make a significant contribution to," Matesic said.
She recalled that in order to advance sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, the government established the Sustainable Development Commission and an analysis is being prepared on how policies correspond to the implementation of sustainable development.
She assessed that the model of actual growth is exceptionally poor on the global scale and in that regard, she mentioned climate change, the accelerated exploitation of renewable and non-renewable resources and unbalanced social development.
Dijana Varlec from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) spoke about corporate social responsibility in Croatia and explained that the SDG index survey has been conducted by the HGK and the Business Council for the past ten years.
Companies participate voluntarily in the survey and assess responsibility as a primary criterion. Large, small and medium-sized businesses participate in the survey each year and their number is growing each year. In 2008, 32 companies participated whereas last year 112 joined the survey.
The SDG index has been described as a good national tool to assess SDG practice as well as a good tool to prepare non-financial statements.