The World’s To-Do List: 17 Global Goals

Call for change

The world is in trouble. Fortunately, the United Nations adopted 17 world-fixing commitments in 2015—and 193 world leaders agreed to help. Also known as the Sustainable Development Goals, these Global Goals aim to end extreme poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030.

Six years in, progress had stalled. So Accenture Song partnered with Project Everyone, a UN-appointed nonprofit promoting the Global Goals, co-founded by Richard Curtis. We were tasked with raising awareness and understanding of the Global Goals in 2021 through an eye-catching campaign.

The 17 goals are very different, ranging from “protect the oceans” to “end conflict and corruption.” The team needed an idea that could bring everyone together—citizens, brands and businesses, and world leaders—to create progress towards the goals. To do this, we reframed the Global Goals as The World’s To-Do List.

Let’s get The World’s To-Do List done

The World’s To-Do List campaign aims to unite all 17 goals.​

Each goal is hand-written on giant sticky notes placed in iconic locations across the globe, in major cities like New York and Venice, on billboards, projected onto buildings, painted as murals and even on the side of vehicles. The playful yet profound messages re-imagine the goals as a series of short actionable “to-do's,” setting a clear reminder that we have a plan to fix the world's problems; we just need to take action.

When tech meets human ingenuity

A corporate takeover

To present a unified front to world leaders, we asked companies to sacrifice media space during the campaign by choosing a sticky note to cover their own branding. The guerilla marketing applied to buildings, billboards, digital spaces and social media. It was spearheaded by a group of companies known as the Global Goals Business Avengers, composed of Arm, Avanti, Commvault, Diageo, DPDgroup, Google, Mars, NTT, Reckitt, Salesforce, SAP, Unilever and Wood plc. The companies represent over 700,000 employees, with a combined social media reach of over 100 million.

Campaign materials included downloadable creative assets, #worldstodolist social campaign materials and a film. A flexible toolkit enabled businesses, governments and activists to push out the campaign simultaneously in multiple cities worldwide. The work directed back to a microsite, letting businesses and individuals know the actions they can take today. The film opened the UN General Assembly and was featured during the Global Citizen Festival, streaming across six continents to an audience of more than 500,000.

A valuable difference

Guiding the world

Now, the phrase “The World’s To-Do List” has been adopted as the platform for the Global Goals. And the sticky notes have become the iconic symbol for The World’s To-Do List.

Millions of people saw the campaign’s launch:

The campaign’s success is just the beginning. Our toolkit will be continually adapted, as more businesses and activists get involved and to mark key cultural moments – including International Women’s Day and World Disability Day. It’s available in seven languages, hosted online and has an accessible how-to-guide, so everyone around the world can participate.

Now, more than ever, it is so important that we get the World’s To-Do List done.