Report: The sustainable development goals and the living wage

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for transformational change in each of the inter-linked dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental. Key to this vision is tackling the issue of poverty.

This report from the Living Wage Foundation explores how responsible employers can support the achievement of these goals, with contributions from business and civil society.

It looks at the contribution that the payment of a real Living Wage can make to the achievement of the UN’s targets and aims to demonstrate that paying staff a wage they can live on should be viewed as an investment, not a cost: payment of the Living Wage can help businesses not only to demonstrate their engagement with the global effort to achieve sustainable development but to reap the strategic benefit of having a stable and committed workforce.

The paper provides detailed analysis of the relevance of the Living Wage to individual SDGs. It identifies the most relevant targets and indicators within individual goals, together with illustrations of how some are relevant to the Living Wage.