eCommerce and sustainable development

The United Nations has defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN established a list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which can be found on the institution’s website. The achievement of these objectives concerns all sectors of activity, including eCommerce. Indeed, eCommerce can contribute to the success of some of these SDGs. We have chosen two that show the contributions of eCommerce: quality education and the reduction of poverty.

eCommerce makes education accessible. Indeed, we talk a lot about eCommerce for products, but we sometimes forget that eCommerce also concerns services, and among services, we can cite educational services. Today, many universities and business schools offer online training at the same level as face-to-face training. Thus a student living in a developing country where they do not have access to a specific type of training can benefit from training two or three times cheaper online. It also provides, through online libraries, low-cost access to an extensive database of books and educational materials.

Regarding poverty reduction, today, with the development of eCommerce, small producers in developing countries that once were reduced to selling their products locally, now have access to global demand thanks to the contribution of social networks and eCommerce platforms.

Export Portal is a perfect example, because it allows small producers in developing countries to offer products for sale. We also give SMEs with no prior international trade experience the tools they need to trade with confidence. While we cannot say that eCommerce is the magic solution to all the problems of sustainable development in the world, it definitely has a pivotal role to play.