Paragon, announced at the MRS annual conference, Impact 2016, will launch in spring of this year. Its vision is to generate and provide access to insights on global issues, which are intended to help governments, academics and NGOs. All insights will be linked to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. 

Partners signed up for launch include PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kantar, Nielsen, MetrixLab, GfK, Flamingo, Save The Children, MRS, Esomar and Sapient Nitro. 

"The past year has set the precedent with highly ambitious goals and frameworks created to address global sustainability and development challenges that we all face," said Stan Sthanunathan, senior vice president, Consumer & Market Insights, Unilever. "It is time to accelerate efforts to move towards achieving these goals and Paragon will allow us to share learning, data and insight, and encourages other businesses and industries to address these critical challenges affecting us all.

"By building a network of partners and working together, we can look for solutions which have greater scale and impact globally to address development and societal challenges.”