Measuring, monitoring and reporting Sustainable Development Goals performance

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Introduction

In order to encourage society in developed and developing nations to achieve sustainable development while taking economic, environmental, and social issues into consideration, the "Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" was introduced in 2015 by the United Nations. 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets and 213 measurable indicators make up the 2030 Agenda. These 17 SDGs can be divided into four separate categories: Social (SDGs 1-6), Economic (SDGs 7-11), Environmental (SDGs 12-15), and law and governance (SDGs 16-17). They bring together the fight against poverty and for sustainable development for the first time. The governments of all member states of the United Nations have made clear their ambition to achieve the 17 SDGs by 2030.
However, for this to happen, the direct and conscious contribution of companies is also necessary, recognized and clarified also by the United Nations (United Nations General Assembly, 2015; Hummel and Szekely, 2022). In fact, companies can contribute in a concrete way to the achievement of the SDGs in a number of ways such as the integration of these objectives into the corporate strategy, the creation of sustainable products and services, the sustainable management of resources, the involvement of community and stakeholders in general. Several studies have underlined the concrete commitment of organizations towards the achievement of the SDGs and towards a correct representation of the correlated performance obtained (Costanza et al., 2016; Rickels et al., 2016; Reyers et al., 2017; Miola and Schiltz, 2019; Erin et al., 2022; Hummel and Szekely, 2022). However, although the SDGs offer a unique opportunity to unite the efforts of governments and companies for sustainable development (Caprani, 2016; Martínez-Córdoba et al., 2020), there are different criticisms about the measurement, assessment, monitoring and reporting of actions taken towards the achievement of the 17 SDGs (Biermann et al., 2017; Bebbington & Unerman, 2018; Heras‐Saizarbitoria et al., 2022). In particular, Bebbington and Unerman (2018, p. 10) underlined the risk that SDGs could be used “to camouflage business-as-usual by disguising it using SDG-related sustainability rhetoric”. 
Therefore, in the light of this, further studies are needed to allow an understanding of the contributions offered by companies towards the achievement of the SDGs in its social, economic, environmental, law and governance perspectives. Furthermore, studies are needed to investigate the alignment between corporate behavior and the SDGs and therefore the integration of the SDGs into corporate strategies and practices in the various components such as administration, governance, management control systems, finance, organization and reporting. The expected contributions will also have to identify practical implications capable of guiding companies and governments towards the achievement of the SDGs.

List of Topic Areas

• Criteria and tools for measuring SDGs performance; 
• Criteria and tools for monitoring progress towards the SDGs;  
• Integrated business management approaches for the SDGs; 
• Evaluation of the impact of investments on the SDGs; 
• Financial instruments to support the SDGs; 
• Corporate governance systems to support the SDGs; 
• Impact of the SDGs on corporate value creation; 
• Risks and opportunities associated with the SDGs; 
• Reporting and disclosure of SDGs performance; 
• SDGs and sustainability disclosure standards; 
• Local policies in support of the SDGs; 
• Public participation and stakeholder engagement for the SDGs performance; 
• Role of technology in measuring, monitoring and reporting the SDGs performance

Submissions Information

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Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/02/2024
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 15/06/2024

Guest Editors

Nicola Raimo, LUM University, Casamassima, Italy, [email protected]
Filippo Vitolla, LUM University, Casamassima, Italy, [email protected]
Isabel-María García-Sánchez, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, [email protected]
Beatriz Aibar Guzmán, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago di Compostela, Spain, [email protected]