May 2017: The UN Global Sustainability Index Initiative (UNGSII) released the ‘SDG Commitment Report 100’ (SCR 100). The document presents the first-ever analysis using annual reports as the sole metric to assess corporate commitments to the SDGs. The report aims to help investors identify the companies most aligned with long-term business and environmental needs.

Since annual reports are legally required, they provide a better source for a company’s sustainability than voluntary sustainability reports, according to Roland Schatz, UNGSII. Alfred Berkeley, Chairman of Princeton Capital Management and former NASDAQ president, adds that including sustainable development themes in legal documents like the annual report “makes them a matter for the whole board of directors and the CEO, and brings to them a level of attention that they would not otherwise have.”

The assessment reviewed the annual reports of 100 large companies, representing each continent. The report finds that 82% of the companies made some mention of sustainable development themes in their 2016 annual reports, with climate change, gender equality and inequality among the most-mentioned issues, and 24% made explicit mention of implementing the SDGs. SCR100 ranks Volvo, Novartis, Sainsbury the most highly, while Aetna, Apple, AT&T, Costco, Disney, GE, Pfizer, and Walmart are among the lowest tier of the list, as sustainable development themes are not present in their annual reports. The report finds that Chinese energy company Sinopec made the most references to alleviating poverty, and Tesco referred the most to ending hunger.

Also on business leadership for the SDGs, the UN Global Compact has invited nominations of “SDG Pioneers,” as part of its Making Global Goals Local Business campaign. The Pioneers are individual business leaders taking action to advance the SDGs through their own company or by mobilizing other businesses, and supporting the SDGs while also contributing to business success. Nominations can be submitted until 2 June 2017. Individuals working at any UN Global Compact signatory company – or a company that applies to join the Compact by 2 June – are eligible. Up to ten SDG Pioneers will be selected and announced at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit, convening on 21 September 2017 in New York, US.

PwC Canada’s Mel Wilson outlines recommendations for businesses on reporting their contributions to the SDGs. He explains that much of the necessary performance information is already available to businesses, as long as they have been reporting through the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The difference is that the SDGs provide a more specific context for the company’s actions, and are globally shared, Wilson writes. For example, a report that a company “reduced our total water consumption by 2.3%,” could become, in the SDG reporting context, “Our overall goal, in line with our commitments to the SDGs, is to reduce our overall water consumption by 10% by 2030. Last year we were able to achieve a 2.3% reduction. We remain confident we are on track to meet our 2030 goal.”

The author recalls that sustainability reporting by private companies began with social accountability reports in the 1970. In the late 1990s, GRI issued its reporting guidelines, and corporate sustainability reports “started to become coherent, consistent, and comparable.” This was followed by the 2015 request by governments in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for companies to report on their progress against the SDGs. Wilson argues that the introduction of the SDGs represents the next phase in the evolution of sustainability reporting, by providing both direction and context for performance indicators. He suggests that companies align their reporting with the SDGs by: establishing a baseline year for each Goal and/or target, such as 2015; identify the company’s aim for the year 2030, and broadly describe the approach to achieving it; and report progress annually, using the KPIs and data that are normally reported.

In other news, health technology company Royal Philips announced an agreement with a consortium of 16 banks for a €1 billion Revolving Credit Facility, with an interest rate that will depend on the company’s improvement in sustainability performance. ING acts as the sustainability coordinator for the facility, and the other member banks of the consortium include ABN AMRO, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ICBC, JPMorgan, Mizuho Bank, Morgan Stanley, MUFG, Rabobank, Société Générale and UBS. [UNGSII Press Release] [UNGSII Website] [SCR100 Findings] [SDG Pioneers Information] [PwC Canada Article] [Philips Consortium]