Set Goals

Sustainability Goals Database

Are you designing new goals or interested in benchmarking your goals against leading practice? To help advance progress in setting credible goals, we will maintain a public goals database containing leading sustainability goals and commitments set by large companies globally. Search by issue, company, industry, goal type, or SDG target.

If you are aware of goals that take a credible approach that should be featured in our database, please let us know.

Embedded Strategies for the Sustainability Transition

It is time for companies to take a very different approach to corporate strategy.

Our Embedded Strategies guide helps companies respond to the growing calls for businesses to articulate their purpose and their strategy in alignment with the need to shift the global economy towards the reduction of inequality, a rapid climate transition, the preservation of biodiversity, and the elimination of waste.

This guide will help you to develop a contextual strategy and goals that ensure your company is doing its part to maintain the resilience of key social and environmental systems.

Building on our Road to Context guide with insights from 300+ interviews with senior executives, CEOs, board chairs, and directors, as well as our experiences supporting companies around the world, it outlines resources and tactics that can help your company to scan for emerging issues and risks; understand their implications for your business; understand your impacts and your potential for positive influence; prioritise where it makes sense to direct your efforts; and set your strategy and goals in alignment with delivering systems value.

Business reporting on the SDGs: An analysis of the Goals and Targets online database

This comprehensive database from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) can help you to effectively integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into your reporting processes. It features a comprehensive inventory of potential disclosures at the targets level for each of the SDGs, and allows you to search by SDG and SDG target, sector, and source. This resource will be most useful to sustainability teams seeking to align their reporting with global goals.

SDG Compass

The SDG Compass aims to provide guidance to companies to help align their strategies and measure their contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals. Of particular value is step 3 (setting goals), which focuses on setting specific, measurable, and time-bound corporate sustainability goals across the organisation.

SDG Ambition Guide

This guide establishes an initial set of benchmarks that can help your company to set the kinds of ambitious goals and targets that are required to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

The SDG Ambition Benchmark Reference Sheets complement the Ambition Guide. These sheets explain the business value of each respective benchmark; provide illustrative details on the steps for integrating each of the SDG Ambition Benchmarks into your company’s business systems; feature examples of leading industry efforts; and highlight preliminary actions and key questions related to integration and implementation.

Targeting Value: Setting, Tracking & Integrating High-Impact Sustainability Goals

This comprehensive report from SustainAbility provides clear insights on the value of setting, pursuing, achieving, and reporting on sustainability goals. The report explores current best practices for ensuring goals deliver maximum business value and broader societal impact, explains the value of context-based goals, identifies key barriers to setting high-impact goals, and offers methods for overcoming them.

The Reporting Exchange

Developed by WBCSD and now a part of ESG Book, the Reporting Exchange is a free online platform that connects you to reliable, comparable information on sustainability reporting requirements and resources. The platform provides detailed, up-to-date coverage from 60 countries and across dozens of sectors, and will help change agents, investors, and leaders within your company who want relevant resources for comparing, preparing, and delivering corporate sustainability reports. The platform's global database contains mandatory and voluntary disclosure requirements, sustainability ratings, rankings, and indexes, and allows you to connect, share, and track relevant updates.

Setting Strong Sustainability Goals Can Feel Hard. It Doesn’t Have To.

Customers, employees, communities, and even shareholders are demanding meaningful corporate action on sustainability. This blog post lists seven straight-forward questions to help you assess your company’s existing goals, or to consider as you develop your next round of sustainability goals.

Science Based Targets

Building on the momentum of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) is a collaboration of 45+ global non-profits and mission-driven organizations working together to develop guidance to set science-based targets for all of Earth’s systems. Science Based Targets has created a five-step target-setting framework that helps you to assess; interpret and prioritise; measure, set, and disclose; act upon; and track your science-based goals. They have also created sector-specific guidance and target monitoring for companies and financial institutions.

At present, Science Based Targets helps companies to develop their goals based on the latest science: SBTi specifically focuses on GHG emission reduction goals, and SBTN specifically focuses on nature positive goals, with target-setting guidance for land, biodiversity, and freshwater. Their respective websites provide comprehensive resources, cases, and support for taking credible action.

Science Based Targets

Building on the momentum of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) is a collaboration of 45+ global non-profits and mission-driven organizations working together to develop guidance to set science-based targets for all of Earth’s systems. Science Based Targets has created a five-step target-setting framework that helps you to assess; interpret and prioritise; measure, set, and disclose; act upon; and track your science-based goals. They have also created sector-specific guidance and target monitoring for companies and financial institutions.

At present, Science Based Targets helps companies to develop their goals based on the latest science: SBTi specifically focuses on GHG emission reduction goals, and SBTN specifically focuses on nature positive goals, with target-setting guidance for land, biodiversity, and freshwater. Their respective websites provide comprehensive resources, cases, and support for taking credible action.

Elephant in the Boardroom: People Are Missing in Corporate Supply Chain Goals

This paper from WRI can help you to better understand a common blind spot in how large companies set supply chain sustainability goals: the lack of focus on people, and especially on small suppliers, workers, and communities. Analysing over 1,000 goals from nearly 700 global firms, the paper found that only 12% of large companies have people-centered supply chain goals, and that 90% of corporate supply chain sustainability goals are designed to push or pull direct suppliers rather than create partnerships of mutual value. The paper highlights missed opportunities to invest in skills, financing, and long-term partnerships, and features three priority guiding questions and examples to help your company move beyond top-down approaches and foster more inclusive, mutually beneficial supply chain strategies.