Quantitative Assessment of Corporate Sustainability in the Context of the Sustainable Development Goals

Considering the growing complexity of sustainability challenges, it is anticipated that corporations will assume a greater role in contributing to global sustainability goals and driving meaningful progress. Nevertheless, integrating sustainability into the fundamental business strategies and operations of an organization presents considerable challenges. To address these issues, it is imperative that companies implement robust mechanisms to assess their sustainability performances, evaluate the impact of their initiatives, and identify areas for improvement. Such assessments are essential for ensuring that corporate activities are aligned with global sustainability targets. The overarching purpose of this doctoral research is to develop a comprehensive framework for assessing organizational sustainability performances in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDG framework was selected for its comprehensive coverage of the most pertinent aspects of sustainability.

This doctoral journey follows two parallel investigative paths that ultimately converge to create a practical assessment framework for corporate sustainability. The research began by exploring the fundamental nature of sustainable companies—identifying what truly makes a business sustainable beyond surface-level claims. This exploration revealed five interconnected fundamental dimensions that characterize genuine business sustainability: the issues companies address, contextual factors that influence them, measurable outcomes they achieve, boundaries of their responsibility, and time horizons they consider. These dimensions form a progression toward authentic sustainability, called the “sustainability continuum.” The study uncovered gaps between theoretical ideals and implementation realities across management levels, the sixth dimension, from reconciling stakeholder interests to robust performance-based assessment methods.

While this conceptual foundation was being established, a parallel investigation examined how companies worldwide are actually incorporating the SDGs into their business operations. Analysis of extensive reporting data of around 8,500 companies revealed a rising tide of SDG engagement, though with notable patterns and limitations. Company size emerged as a significant factor, with larger corporations reporting more comprehensively than smaller enterprises, although smaller companies in high-income regions are increasingly participating. Geographic location and industry sector strongly influence which goals companies prioritize, with businesses consistently focusing on sector -relevant SDGs regardless of their size or location. Perhaps most tellingly, the research found limited statistical evidence between companies' actual sustainability performance and their SDG reporting practices, suggesting that many organizations may have used SDG disclosures primarily for reputation management rather than as drivers of operational and system transformation.

The insights from these two parallel investigations provided essential building blocks for developing a comprehensive assessment framework. This development proceeded through two interconnected chapters. First, the research tackled the critical challenge of selecting appropriate indicators for measuring corporate SDG performance. It began by examining how existing ESG metrics from regulatory frameworks like the European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS) align with SDG indicators, finding promising connections and concerning gaps. To accompany this pool of sustainability metrics, the research established a systematic approach to indicator definition and selection, distinguishing between mandatory criteria (like relevance and quality) and recommended criteria (like data availability) to ensure robust assessment while acknowledging practical limitations. The framework for indicator definition and selection encompasses the assessment of individual indicators and the entire set of indicators.

With these methodological foundations in place, the research culminated in developing and validating a comprehensive framework for assessing corporate contributions to the SDGs. This framework integrates insights from all previous investigations and existing research on SDG methodology to address critical requirements such as thorough coverage, robust indicator selection, value chain impacts, and the integration of absolute sustainability thresholds. This framework structures assessment processes into phases and steps, drawing inspiration from the established methodological approaches, such as LCA and SDG Compass. A large corporation, used as a real-world case study, demonstrated the framework's practical viability while raising a number of implementation challenges. The proposed framework represents a significant shift in how we evaluate corporate sustainability, moving from celebrating relative improvements to measuring performance against absolute thresholds required for global sustainability. The developed framework balances theoretical robustness with practical applicability, employing systems thinking to avoid simplistic evaluations that miss crucial interconnections between sustainability dimensions.

For various stakeholders, this research offers valuable guidance. Academic researchers can build upon the established frameworks by testing them in diverse contexts and developing standardized metrics. Policymakers can incorporate these insights into regulatory instruments while supporting smaller enterprises. Corporate leaders gain a roadmap for meaningful sustainability integration beyond surface-level reporting. Investors receive frameworks for distinguishing between symbolic and substantive corporate sustainability efforts. Multi-stakeholder alliances can develop collaborative platforms to standardize and verify sustainability information.

Looking forward, several frontier areas await further exploration: developing harmonized indicator sets that balance general and industry-specific sustainability metrics, establishing fair methods for allocating absolute thresholds across complex business relationships, creating robust data platforms that balance transparency with confidentiality, and designing financial mechanisms that genuinely incentivize corporate SDG performance.

By providing a comprehensive framework for assessing corporate contributions to the SDGs, this doctoral research establishes a foundation for more meaningful corporate sustainability efforts, moving beyond selective reporting toward performance that aligns with global sustainability imperatives.