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Now I am going to give an example of a company which is willing to help solving a sustainable
development goal.
Danone is a French multinational food-products corporation which sells water and fresh dairy products
based whose headquarters are based in Paris and founded in Spain by Isaac Carasso. This company is
now directed by Emmanuel Faber since 2017. Danone has a worldwide presence in more than 120
countries, among the brands the best-selling are Aptamil, Activia and Danone. Moreover, year by year
the turnover of this corporation is increasing (25.3 billion dollars in 2019).
However, Danone is not only a company which sells dairy products but also working on environmental
and social issues on the planet. In this section we will focus on social issues. Danone has then decided
to commit on many SDG such as zero hunger or responsible consumption and production for instance
Figure 1: Contribution of Danone to the Un’s Sustainable Development Goals. We will focus on the SDG
1. It is committed to contribute to the “Target 1.2”. The goal of this target is to reduce poverty by half
by 2030. The second commitment is the “Target 1.4”. The aim is to guarantee that basic needs or
economic resources are available for everyone. The last one is the “Target 1.5”, in which Danone is
engaged to build infrastructures in order improve their vulnerability to climate-related extreme events.
In order to solve these issues, the company has created social innovation funds such as Danone
Communities established in 2007 it aims at breaking the cycle of poverty. According to their website,
“Danone Communities supports social entrepreneurs active in fighting malnutrition and developing
access to drinking water, two levers to reduce poverty.” This social innovation fund is not linked with
the SDG 1 but also with the SDG 2 (zero hunger) and SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation). For instance,
in Bangladesh it has founded Grameen Danone in 2006. Grameen Danone is a joint venture from the
group Danone and Grameen Bank. The purpose of this joint venture is to provide basic dairy products
for local population at an affordable price. In 2018, Bangladesh counted 161 millions of inhabitants
which includes more than 60 million of children. In this country, malnutrition is widespread in cities
and campaigns, indeed, 38% of children are affected. This is why, the Grameen Danone Food team
made a yoghurt (Shokti +) that gather all nutritional needs for children. In 2019, 300.000 people have
benefit from Shotki +. Moreover, not only children are fed but it has also created jobs. More than 350
jobs have been created, indeed, farmers sell milk for the company and other people retailed yoghurts.
Danone founded “The Danone Ecosystem Fund” in 2009 as well. The objective is to deal not only with
social challenges but also environmental and health concerns. In 2020, more than 60 000 people were
empowered in 29 countries thanks to a funding of 185 million euros whose 72 million euros are from
The Ecosystem Fund and 113 million euros are from project partners. By hiring more than 55.000
people from all over the world, Danone Ecosystem Fund has developed 87 projects in total such as
Milk Business Academy launched in 2012. This is a training farm situated in Russia in order to train milk
farmers’ long-term productivity and ensuring a high quality milk supply. This academia supports the
use of eco-friendly practices that it is for milk quality, feed systems and animal welfare. Danone
invested in total 2 million euros to build it. Since the beginning more than 1.500 farmers had been
trained, consequently, more jobs were created as well as farmers with new skills. Besides, with the
