Sustainability report:  Sustainable development goals evident in strategies and everyday work

The Ministry of Transport and Communications has published its third sustainability report. It contains information on the measures taken by the Ministry to promote the achievement of the UN’s Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in 2023. 

“In the Ministry’s administrative branch, every agency in its own role promotes responsibility and the sustainable development goals. Digital connections, transport and communications play a key role in the transformation towards sustainability,” says Permanent Secretary Minna Kivimäki.

Within the administrative branch, there is a joint group strategy and joint objectives for societal impact. They take the UN’s sustainable development goals into account.

Three Agenda 2030 goals

The sustainability reporting is based on 17 globally agreed Agenda 2030 goals that aim at ecologically, socially and economically sustainable development.

The Ministry has selected three goals on which its promotion measures will have the greatest impact. 

The goals include:
1. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. 
2. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. 
3. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. 

In the reporting, the focus is on the handprint of an organisation’s activities, i.e. the impacts achieved through its own action. The handprint of a ministry is especially visible in legislation and coordination of central government funding. 

Goal is an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable society

Reducing transport emissions, especially those from road transport, plays a key role in slowing down climate change. The measures are related to replacing fossil fuels, renewing the vehicle fleet and improving the efficiency of the transport system, which means increasing the share of sustainable modes of transport and improving logistics by means of data. 

From the viewpoint of economic sustainability, digital connections, transport and communications are central in the competitiveness and renewal of business life as well as in the vitality and wellbeing of the whole of Finland.

In terms of social sustainability, the Ministry’s work ensures that people’s basic needs are met. This is related to traffic safety, for example, and to the accessibility of transport and digital services.

Next steps 

The State Treasury recommends that all government agencies prepare an annual sustainability report on their activities. 

Inquiries:

Pasi Ovaska, Senior Ministerial Adviser, tel. +358 295 342 169, [email protected]

Veera Kojo, Senior Ministerial Adviser, tel. +358 295 342 130, [email protected]