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Case studies of sustained and successful development cooperation - Supporting Transformational Change Booklet

October 30, 2015.

UNDP has been engaged in development cooperation for more than 50 years. While the modalities of its projects and programmes have evolved, the ultimate purpose of its work has remained the same: to assist UN Member States to improve the living standards and life opportunities of their citizens (empow¬ered lives) by supporting the development of national capacity so that member states can manage their own development programmes (resilient nations). UNDP has not been the only development agency which has worked towards this objective, and indeed it has always worked as an integral part of the wider UN System in each country, as well as alongside many other multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental practitioners. Nonetheless, UNDP is one of those with the longest engagement, the broadest mandate, the most partner countries and the most extensive country representation.

The value of development cooperation is under renewed challenge and UNDP is embarking on a process of institutional renewal. The time is ripe, therefore, for UNDP to identify and document examples of successful and sustained development cooperation that have contributed to transformational change at the country or subregional level. These examples — presented here — help to identify generic lessons for successful development cooperation that can be applied in future programme design and implementation.

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Top 10 Sustainability Case Studies & Success Stories

During my academic research on corporate sustainability efforts, I realize that environmental and social practices have a significant impact on the long-term success of businesses. Some businesses outperform others in this area, giving them a competitive advantage.

See 10 sustainability case studies to incorporate sustainability strategies into corporate actions: 

1. UPS ORION: Improve transportation efficiency

Transportation activities accounted for almost 30% of US greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). 1 For a company like UPS, which distributes goods across regions, transportation activities make up the bulk of GHG emissions. As a result, enhancing transportation efficiency is crucial for organizations like UPS to remain sustainable.

As a solution, UPS adopted an AI system called ORION which is a route optimizer that aims to minimize the number of turns during the delivery. 2 Initiation began in 2012, and ORION saves UPS 10 million gallons of fuel per year, which means that in addition to the financial benefits, it decreases UPS’s carbon footprint by 100,000 metric tons per year, or the equivalent of removing more than 20,000 cars from the roads.(An average car emits 4.6 metric tons of GHG per year. 3 )

In addition to private solutions like ORION, there are public cloud route optimizer systems that businesses can deploy without building hardware. These tools help firms to use their software as a service by paying a subscription cost.

To learn more about ensuring supply chain sustainability with technology you can read Technologies Improving Supply Chain Sustainability .

Figure 2: US GHG emission distribution

Source: U.S Environmental Protection Agency 4

2. IKEA IWAY: Make business with ESG-oriented corporations

Supplier codes of conduct are established guidelines that require other businesses to demonstrate their operations’ social and environmental impacts. The objective is to reward companies that meet strong ESG standards. It is also one of the positive governance indications for organizations, as we highlighted in the ESG metrics article .

IWAY is the supplier code of conduct of IKEA forcing suppliers to meet certain environmental and humanitarian qualities to work with. 5 The initiative has been in place for over 20 years, and over that time, IKEA has refined it based on their prior experiences. IWAY six is the most recent version of IKEA’s supplier code of conduct, which evaluates:

• Core worker rights.
• Safety of the working place.
• Life-work balance of employees.
• Water and waste management of potential suppliers.
• Prevention of child labor. 

3. General Electric digital wind farm: Produce green energy efficiently

Wind turbine productivity varies greatly depending on the design, weather conditions, and geography of the location it is deployed. Using IoT and digital twins to collect data on each wind turbine and simulate possible modifications, such as adjusting the direction of the wind turbine, can assist corporations in locating their wind turbines in a wind farm more effectively.

Furthermore, the performance of wind turbines declines with time and may require maintenance; employing sensors and digital twins can assist in determining the appropriate time for repair.

Figure 3: How digital twins can optimize wind turbine productivity

Source: DNV 6

General Electric’s (GE) digital wind farms are based on these two elements. GE optimized turbines using sensors and digital twin real-time monitoring technologies. Each wind farm can create up to 10% more green energy as a result of the digital wind farm initiative, which helps to enhance our worldwide green energy mix. 7

4. Swire Properties green building: Minimize GHG emissions

Swire Properties is a construction company that operates in China and especially in the Hong Kong area. In 2018, the company built One Taikoo Place which is a green building that aims to reduce GHG emissions of Swire Properties in order to align with sustainability goals of the company’s stakeholders.

Swire properties use 3D modeling techniques to optimize the building’s energy efficiency. Reduce electricity consumption by using smart lighting systems with sunshine and motion sensors. 8 A biodiesel generation system has been installed in the building, which converts waste food oil into biodiesel. Swire Properties additionally uses low-carbon embedded materials and a lot of recycled materials in their construction. 9

Swire Properties was able to cut GHG emissions intensity throughout their portfolio by nearly 20% because of the usage of digital technologies and low carbon integrated materials. 10

5. H&M let’s close the gap: Deposit scheme for gathering raw material

In 2023, we consumed 1.8 times more resources than Earth generates annually because our economic outlook is based on production, use and disposal. 11 Such an economy is not sustainable and that is the reason why the concept of circular economy (CE) is trending nowadays.

The most basic principle of CE is to use trash as a raw material for production through innovation, recycling, or repairing and reusing existing products.

H&M’s “Let’s Close the Gap” project began in 2013 as a CE best practice that collects and categorizes discarded clothing from customers. 12 If the garment is in decent condition, they will restore it and find a new owner for it. If a garment reaches the end of its useful life, H&M will recycle it and reuse the material in new goods.

Customers who bring in their old clothes are rewarded with tokens that can be used to get a discount at H&M shops. Incentivizing customers creates a complete CE loop. In 2019, 57% of H&M’s raw materials were sustainable. By 2030, the company plans to improve it by 100 percent. 13

6. Gusto: Hiring female engineers to close gender inequality gap

Gender inequality remains a major social issue despite all the improvements. 14 There are two common types of gender disparity in the workplace. The first is gender pay disparity, which occurs when companies pay male employees more and provide better working conditions than female employees in the same position.

The second is occupational segregation, in which women are hired for non-technical jobs while men hold the majority of leadership roles. This was the situation at the software firm Gusto, where female engineers made up slightly more than 5% of the engineering team at the beginning of 2015. 15

Julia Lee, one of Gusto’s first female engineers, claimed that other engineers did not accept her ideas because she was a “female engineer.” Gusto initiated an HR drive to reduce gender inequality by prioritizing the recruitment of female engineers, prohibiting female workers from scrolling, and deleting masculine job ads like “ninja rock star coder.”

Gusto was able to improve its female engineer ratio to roughly 20% by the end of 2015 thanks to the campaign. 16 The average ratio among software businesses’ engineering teams was 12% in 2013. Therefore, this was a significant improvement in a short period of time.  

7. HSBC: ESG concerned green finance

Finance companies can help speed up the transition to sustainable business practices by supporting initiatives run by responsible businesses. HSBC has committed to investing $100 billion in sustainability projects by the end of 2025. 17 In 2021, HSBC’s ESG practices were rewarded with an AA rating by MSCI. 18

HSBC is also working toward a goal of using 100% renewable energy as their source of electricity by 2030. The company reduces its consumption of paper and single-use plastic packaging for coffee and beverages. 19

For more information about best ESG practices, you can read ESG Reporting Best Practices .

8. Signify light-as-a-service: Enhance production stewardship

The product-service system (PSS) is a business model in which producers acquire a product over its lifetime and rent or lease it to the users. PSS ensures product stewardship since the product always becomes the asset of the company. It encourages producers to provide high-quality, repairable items in order to extend the product’s useful life. As a result, it helps to close the circularity gap by ensuring better use of natural resources.

Signify, a luminaire producer, adopts such a business strategy where it demands a subscription fee according to the usage period of their lighting systems. Signify claims that PSS allows them to produce 0 luminaire waste and drops maintenance costs. 20

9. Airbus additive manufacturing: Manufacture lighter planes with 3D printing

Additive manufacturing is a process where a computer-aided design (CAD) file is converted into a stereolithography (STL) file, which is then sliced into layers to guide the 3D printing of an object. 21 AIMultiple expects that additive manufacturing will disrupt airplane manufacturing since:

• It speeds up the manufacturing of parts compared to traditional molding techniques.
• It is cheaper due to effective use of raw materials and time reduction of production.
• It enables the manufacturing of lighter parts by up to 45%, resulting in lighter planes that burn less fuel. 22 According to Airbus, additive manufacturing technology can reduce an A320 plane’s annual GHG emissions by around 465,000 metric tons, which is roughly the same as eliminating 100,000 automobiles from the road for a year.

To effectively use 3D printers, Airbus partnered with Materialise, a Belgium-based technology company that specialize in additive manufacturing. 23

For more information regarding improving corporate sustainability by digital transformation you can read Digital Technologies that Improve Corporate Sustainability .

10. Tata Power: Solar plants on the roofs

Rooftops offer a lot of empty space that can be used to install solar panels. Such initiatives have been taken in various parts of the world. Tata Power does it in India and generates green electricity by using idle places of buildings.

In 2021, Tata Power was able to spread their program throughout 90 Indian cities, producing 421 million watts of electricity, which is equivalent to nearly 40 thousand homes’ yearly electricity use in the US. 24 The average annual power usage for a residential utility customer in the US was 10,791 kWh in 2022. 25

We expect that in the near future, the cooperation between energy and construction companies will enhance the use of idle places in buildings in a more effective way. Such an industrial symbiosis reduces both sectors’ ESG risk.

For more information on the top carbon footprint calculators, check Carbon Footprint Calculator Software/Tools for Businesses .

To learn more about corporate sustainability you can contact with us:

External Links

• 1. Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions . United States Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 2. UPS To Enhance ORION With Continuous Delivery Route Optimization . UPS. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 3. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle . United States Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 4. Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions . U.S Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 5. Creating a sustainable IKEA value chain with IWAY . IKEA. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 6. WindGEMINI Digital twin for wind turbine operations . DNV. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 7. Digital Wind Operations Optimization from GE Renewable Energy . General Electrics. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 8. Unlocking a sustainable future: Why digital solutions are the key to sustainable business transformation . Schneider Electric. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 9. One Taikoo Place . HKGBC. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 10. Unlocking a sustainable future: Why digital solutions are the key to sustainable business transformation . Schneider Electric. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 11. Earth Overshoot Day . Geneva Environment Network. Accessed: 3/September/2024.
• 12. The only trends worth following? Recycling and repairing . H&M. Accessed: 3/September/2024.
• 13. Faithful, M. H&M And IKEA Want Your Old Stuff Back, Here’s Why . Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 14. Kelan, E. Why Aren’t We Making More Progress Towards Gender Equity? Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 15. Adams, S. The Tech Unicorn That Went For Women Engineers: Here’s How It Worked Out . Forbes. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 16. Adams, S. The Tech Unicorn That Went For Women Engineers: Here’s How It Worked Out . Forbes. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 17. HSBC sets out net zero ambition . HSBC. Accessed: 2/September/2024.
• 18. Investing for a sustainable future . HSBC. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 19. HSBC sets out net zero ambition . HSBC. Accessed: 2/September/2024.
• 20. Green Switch Program . Signify. Accessed: 2/September/2024.
• 21. Wong, K. V., & Hernandez, A. (2012). A review of additive manufacturing. International scholarly research notices , 2012 (1), 208760.
• 22. Pioneering bionic 3D printing . Airbus. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 23. Bridging the gap with 3D printing . Airbus. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 24. Unlocking a sustainable future: Why digital solutions are the key to sustainable business transformation . Schneider Electric. Accessed: 4/September/2024.
• 25. How much electricity does an American home use? U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed: 4/September/2024.

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A wonderful collection of case studies on corporate sustainability. I enjoyed the read. I am convicted to delve into promoting sustainability in Africa.

Hello, James! Thank you for your feedback. Awesome! That’s a great cause to pursue.

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Case Study: Scenario Planning for Sustainable Development in Peru's Amazon Forest

Madre de Dios, located in the foothills of Peru’s tropical Andes, is one of the most biodiverse places in the world. The region has renowned protected areas and initial land-use plans, which makes sustainable development a challenge. In 2014, a hydrocarbon company began gas exploration activities in Madre de Dios as part of the government’s economic development needs. The work overlapped a protected area, called the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, and included several Indigenous territories. 

There were concerns that energy exploration would open the area to illegal mining and deforestation. Local communities feared it would impact their forest and livelihoods. This case study explores how researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Sustainability used scenario planning to help the company and regional government minimize social and environmental impacts in Madre de Dios and create a strategy for sustainable development.

Madre de Dios is located within the Vilcabamba-Amboró conservation corridor, which connects about 74 million acres (30 million hectares) of wildlife habitat between Peru and Bolivia. The corridor is the most biologically diverse ecosystem in the world. Dividing Madre de Dios and the conservation corridor is the Interoceanic Highway, which connects ports on the Atlantic coast of Brazil to those on the Pacific coast of Peru.

The road, completed in 2010, sped the transition of the regional economy from forest-based extractive industries (logging, Brazil nut harvesting, ecotourism, etc.) to agriculture, cattle production and gold mining. These changes promoted population growth. Today, Madre de Dios is home to about 150,000 people, including 14 native cultures, migrants from neighboring Andean regions, and immigrants from Brazil, Bolivia, and other countries.  

Agriculture and gold mining are the main causes of deforestation in the area. The Amazon Forest covers more than 90% of Madre de Dios territory, of which about half is protected. The rest is divided into concessions for logging, hydrocarbon, mining, ecotourism and more.

Evaluation and Analysis  

The Center for Conservation and Sustainability suggested a scenario planning approach to minimize the possible impact of the gas development field in Madre de Dios. Scenario planning is a structured way to think about the future of a region and facilitate decision making by exploring a handful of plausible futures, called scenarios. For this purpose, the CCS team needed to compare the economic, social and environmental success of different development scenarios. With more than 30 years of experience in Peru, CCS scientists were able to work with local stakeholders and the government to define a path forward. 

When the exploratory drilling well produced no gas, the work ended. However, CCS continued to complete the scenario planning project for Madre de Dios to benefit sustainable development across the entire region (32,935 square miles or 85,301 square kilometers).  

Creating sustainable landscapes requires managing roads and cities (gray infrastructure) that provide economic services with rivers and forests (green Infrastructure) that support biodiversity. Recognizing this, CCS developed the Working Landscape Simulator. The simulator combined state-of-the-art modeling with community engagement. It included seven steps:

• Assess the critical goods and services that people get from ecosystems (called ecosystem services) in Madre de Dios  
• Develop qualitative scenarios about the future of the region with community participation   
• Collect and generate quantitative data (demographic, economic, etc.) 
• Model landscape changes, like deforestation and urbanization, for each scenario 
• Evaluate economic, environmental and social indicators of success 
• Develop lessons learned from the study 
• Share the results 

Models of land-use changes, such as trends in deforestation and urbanization, made the best use of the existing data. Engagement with local stakeholders ensured they were interested in the results and more likely to use them for decision making.

Milestone Solutions  

This study demonstrates that industrial operations, such as gas exploration, can contribute to sustainable development beyond traditional approaches and legal obligations. In scenario planning, CCS was able to provide: 

• Collective recommendations  that highlight the need for a land-use plan and provide a roadmap for planning regional land changes and sustainable development 
• Maps of critical conservation corridors  and other areas that are key to keeping habitats connected within Madre de Dios. 
• Essential and previously unavailable data  – such as historical land cover maps; ecosystem services; and economic, social, and environmental indicators – needed to guide sustainable development and land-use planning.

Recommendations 

The Center for Conservation and Sustainability’s study was key to understanding the conservation landscape of Madre de Dios and integrating that knowledge with the region's development needs. Best practices from this approach include: 

• Consider scenario planning for large-scale projects to build a shared conservation and development vision 
• Engage stakeholders early in the process 
• Use high-quality models that track socioeconomic and ecosystem changes 
• Develop various indicators of success in the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic prosperity, human wellbeing and environmental integrity) 
• Share information by making methods and results publicly available to all 

To learn more about the Madre de Dios scenario planning study download the  “Future of Madre de Dios: Smithsonian’s Working Landscape Simulator for Sustainable Development” book.

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Itaipu’s 17 Case Studies Responding to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

End Poverty In All Its Forms Everywhere

Download Case Study

End Hunger, Achieve Food Security And Promote Sustainable Agriculture

Ensure Healthy Lives And Promote Well-Being For All At All Ages

Ensure Inclusive And Equitable Quality Education And Promote Lifelong Learning Opportunities For All

Achieve Gender Equality And Empower All Women And Girls

Ensuring Availability And Sustainable Management Of Water And Sanitation

Ensuring Access To Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable And Modern Energy For All

Promote Sustained Inclusive And Sustainable Economic Growth, Full And Productive Employment And Decent Work For All

Build Resilient Infrastructure, Promote Inclusive And Sustainable Industrialization And Foster Innovation

Reduce Inequality Within And Among Countries

Make Cities And Human Settlements Inclusive, Safe, Resilient And Sustainable

Ensure Sustainable Consumption And Production Patterns

Take Urgent Action To Combat Climate Change And Its Impacts

Conserve And Sustainably Use The Oceans, Seas And Marine Resources

Protect, Restore And Promote Sustainable Use Of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Sustainably Manage Forests, Combat Desertification, Halt And Reverse Land Degradation And Halt Biodiversity Loss

Promote Peaceful And Inclusive Societies For Sustainable Development

Strenghten The Means Of Implementation And Revitalize The Global Partnership For Sustainable Development

The Top Sustainability Stories of 2019

by Andrew Winston

Summary .   

In my annual review of big themes in sustainability and business — in other words, how companies manage environmental and social issues and opportunities — I’ve always included a changing climate as a big story. But it’s now not an annual story; it’s permanent. The list of extreme, tragic, and very costly weather events this year —  record heat in Europe, hail in June in Mexico , record floods in Nebraska , endless Australian bush fires , and epic destruction from storms in Mozambique and the Bahamas – was shocking. But sadly, it’s now the norm.

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