Quantifying the Sustainable Development Goals

At the end of 2017, we published a blog on how companies are starting to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Sustainable Development Goals to create a shared common purpose with their stakeholders. If you’re working in corporate sustainability and reading this new blog, you’re likely already fully on board with the mission ...

Lucy Haines

25 Jan 2018 2 mins read time

Photo by Capturing the human heart. on Unsplash.jpg

At the end of 2017, we published a blog on how companies are starting to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Sustainable Development Goals to create a shared common purpose with their stakeholders. If you’re working in corporate sustainability and reading this new blog, you’re likely already fully on board with the mission of the SDGs to “end poverty”, “protect the planet” and “ensure prosperity for all”, as well as the business case for sustainable development.

As the SDGs have become more mainstream, we are seeing many of the sectoral leaders aligning the SDGs to their sustainability reporting by directly incorporating their selected SDGs at forefront of their disclosures (and in some cases throughout the entirety of their reports). Many companies such as 2017 sustainability reporting leaders  Marks & Spencer, Siemens, CRH and Visa are using the SDGs in their sustainability reports to indicate which company activities and impact areas affect the various SDGs they have committed to. And in 2017, the Global Reporting Initiative released a report that analysed a possible inventory of new and existing disclosures per SDG – at the level of the 169 SDG targets – with a final GRI handbook on SDG reporting expected sometime in 2018. 

However, once your organisation has committed to the SDGs, engaged its employees and stakeholders, and aligned its reporting with those goals that are most relevant to its activities, how does it go about accurately assessing its own specific contribution to meeting them? To answer this question, Carbon Clear and our parent company, consultancy EcoAct, have been working with our clients in recent months on innovative solutions that allow companies to quantify their SDG impact.

While there is no one-size fits all SGD strategy that a company can implement, we have been putting together appropriate tools and resources that will support our clients on both determining that strategy and then measuring impact appropriately, and that are aligned with the Gold Standard for the Global Goals. We tailor SDG strategies to focus on the most material SDGs and the expectations of key stakeholders. Our a range of SDG-related tools include:

  • SDG Guide 
  • SDG Management tools
  • SDG Quanitfication tools 
  • Gold Standard for the Global Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals factsheet provides you with all the information you need to understand why the SDGs matter and how you can approach them for your organisation.