SDG revenue alignment, cited to source

The share of a company's revenue generated by products and services that align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The UN 2030 Agenda sets 17 goals and 169 underlying targets, 138 of which sit beneath the 15 investable goals. Alignment is assessed against the individual investable targets, using the Sustainable Development Investments taxonomy published by the SDI Asset Owner Platform, a consortium of some of the world's largest pension funds.

A goal headline is too broad to invest against. The 15 investable goals contain 138 underlying targets between them. Goal 6 alone covers drinking water access, sanitation, water quality, water-use efficiency, resource management and ecosystem protection, and a company can serve one of those and none of the others. Assessing at target level shows which part of a goal a company's revenue actually serves, so a mandate can be written against target 6.1 rather than against goal 6 as a whole.

Goals 16 and 17, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions and Partnerships for the Goals, sit outside the scope of corporate operations and are not treated as investable under the SDI taxonomy. That leaves 138 targets across the remaining 15 goals. Within those, the means-of-implementation targets lettered .a, .b and .c are directed at sovereign authorities and policymakers rather than businesses, so no company revenue can be attributed to them.

Analysts tag every revenue-generating activity using audited filings. Each investable target is then written as a rules-based query over those tags, for example companies that distribute water and operate infrastructure for target 6.1. Revenue from matching activities is allocated proportionately, so a diversified company can show partial alignment or revenue aligned to several goals.

A single product line can align with more than one goal, so individual goal percentages are not mutually exclusive and can sum above 100%. Total company alignment does not double count. A company with revenue aligned to both goal 6 and goal 9 is reported as aligned once at the total level, up to a maximum of 100%.