The role of educational institutions in transformations to achieve sustainable development

Significant gap in investment resources for financing Sustainable Development Goals can be overcome with the revitalization of the corporate social responsibility mechanism of the financial sector institutions, for example banks and stock exchanges as the largest players in the global financial sector. The most relevant for them are Goals 1, 5, 8, 10, 13, 17. Incorporating these goals into activities of the financial sector institutions requires not only the activation of their CSR mechanism in the directions indicated by the targets, but also the radical restructuring of all business processes and the reorientation of their overall sustainability strategy. Analysis of current sustainability reporting disclosure by financial sector institutions in global and regional aspects was conducted. Based on the analysis, the authors define the role of CSRs of banks and stock exchanges in SDG financing as follows: banks – ensuring their own sustainability and efficiency through CSR mechanisms, formation of new tools, methods and technologies of financial support of SDG; stock exchanges – minimization of information asymmetry in investor decision making, taking into consideration ESG criteria, formation of exemplary disclosure practices and new markets and market benchmarks by listing companies.

Incredible tangible and intangible heritage of India play a vital role towards the nation’s overall growth and development. Ancient literature posse’s sufficient references about the travelers, scholars and philosophers those preserved and portrayed the heritage for future generation which is apparently visible from various travelers’ diaries, traditions and exhibitions. Despite a difficulty in finding out the right sentiment for expressing the true meaning of heritage, the concept of heritage has been explored to its core for an acceptable definition in this research study. This study suggests that heritage can act as an important holistic development tool for the overall community development. The opinion of stakeholders was recorded with the help of a questionnaire administered on local community nearby places of historic significance. The study provides ample scope and opportunities towards heritage tourism development in India as per stakes of local community. According to Mahatma Gandhi “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people”. Therefore local community has been considered as the ultimate ambassador for heritage and cultural tourism in this research paper.

Environmental responsibility mechanism in the public sector of the economy has an important sense in UN Sustainability Development Goals achievement, as well as in ensuring the competitiveness of the state-owned companies and the state as a whole. Sustainability concept, concept of “smart cities and smart communities” and the implementation of public administration reform, the necessity to increase the transparency of state-owned companies and the responsibility of municipalities to communities determine the reasonability and urgency in environmental responsibility mechanism development. Systematization and comparative analysis of world and national experience of environmental responsibility mechanism development in the public sector of the economy were made. The author’s approach to the structuring of the mechanism of environmental responsibility in the public sector was developed. Public policy peculiarities implementation in the field of environmental responsibility were investigated considering the levels of regulation of such liability: in state-owned companies as models for other sectors of the economy; in public authorities and municipalities.