A recent survey by Shell has revealed that around 40% of students want a job that lets them give something back to the world. If you are one of those students and are considering becoming an actuary, then we have some good news. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) have launched a campaign to help the UN implement their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and are calling on actuaries to submit a proposal that will outline how they can contribute to implementing these goals.
So what are these goals? There are 17 overarching goals, and 169 individual targets within these goals. Each one is designed to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by 2030. This is achieved through the participation of everyone in society. These goals are also known as ‘Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ or Agenda 2030. The goals include ensuring healthy lives, ensuring access to water, reducing inequality, taking urgent action to combat climate change and promoting peaceful and inclusive societies.
Submissions from companies can include things such as;
- Practical examples of actuaries that are considering the Sustainable Development Goals in their work
- Evidence showing the impact that SDGs have on the actuarial profession and the industries that they work in
- Evidence demonstrating how the profession can help both clients and employees contribute to implementing these SDGs.
According to the IFoA companies and investors have already started mapping their objectives and activities to the SDGs. They are also contributing towards these goals through their investment decisions and asset allocations. These include tackling areas such as poverty, equalities, carbon emissions and international collaboration. Notably, the insurance sector has given the most specific commitments to achieving the goals to date.
President of the IFoA, Marjorie Ngwenya, told TheActuary;
‘This will help create a framework for collaborating with others and provide more specific direction for those working in our profession…actuaries are experts in providing answers to complex questions around long-term global risk. We hope submissions will help shape ideas and provide structure on how to channel that expertise…the aim is to contribute towards solutions which eradicate poverty and hunger, tackle climate change, and ensure access to education and work for all, to have the best chance of answering our question on the SDGs, we would like this to be a truly open and global discussion.’
The deadline for the submission of these proposals is 23rd March 2018 and the best proposals will be used to liaise with policymakers to meet the SDGs.
This initiative comes after the UK government issued a review in November 2017 urging trustees to push for greater social impact by investing and encouraged them to engage with members to build a nationwide ‘culture of social impact investment’.
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries was founded in 2010 and is the UK’s only chartered professional body dedicated to ‘educating, developing and regulating actuaries based both in the UK and internationally’. You can read more about the UN’s SDG’s, or 17 Goals, here. For those young people seeking a career with a social conscience, the actuarial profession may have just made the list. By committing to these goals, actuarial companies are showing potential employees that they are actively taking steps to help solve the social and environmental challenges facing the world today. We have a huge amount of information on actuaries so if you are considering entering this profession, be sure to check out the actuary section on our website.
