UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have gained increased attention in recent years to manage people, planet, and profit in the most sustainable manner. To put a bold step forward, United Nations (UN) started a review for all participant countries on their predefined national SDG target performance. To standardize this initiative, each country is required to draft and submit a Voluntary National Review (VNR) - a national report card on their progression/ regression against 17 goals and subsequently 169 targets to the UN. These reviews by UN have aided countries to bridge the already widened gaps in their sustainability pledge individually. To bring this to fore, sustainability pledge has become a mandate for any private & public sector organisations to have a tangible and measurable impact on the UNSDG goals on ground.
Real impact of these SDGs beyond policy is hollow without the active role from the private organisations. To boost this thought, TCS is increasingly contributing to supporting private and public sector organisations to further embed the foundational concept of UNSDGs with ongoing and any upcoming trade activities of a given country. TCS is leveraging UNSDG reporting aspiration and advising clients on similar lines.
This paper represents a methodical way to identify and fulfil sustainability goals of a country by breaking these goals into strategy thrust areas linked to appropriate measurable KPIs and finally its translation into actionable policies. The paper is targeted toward providing a pathway in the form of an SDG impact quantification framework to governments/organisations for building trust in the eyes of regulators, key stakeholders and differentiating themselves from their peers.
Changes in regulations and global key stakeholders’ expectations are accelerating toward SDG impact quantification which would help governments/organisations globally. The authorities while doing disclosures are merely mapping their initiatives to the 169 UNSDG targets relevant in their report and intertwining between the two is not seen often.
Currently, all relevant KPIs are not synced with ESG policies which are resulting in SDG adherence inadequacy against the global agenda. This inadequacy is sufficient to derail countries from their 2030 SDG targets. Moreover, impact quantification approaches are often lacking and hence, non-directed impacts are reflected in the disclosures which are partially or completely unrelated to what is required to align with SDGs.
There is a strong need to adopt the SDG Impact Quantification framework by leveraging the attribution and contribution impact analysis coupled with strong digital data spine while applying standardised "UNSDG" targets and indicators to deliver tangible long-term impact. TCS brings this combined view forward, reflecting experience supporting corporates, government bodies, and "UN"-aligned programs. The combined effect would generate verifiable positive & negative impacts.
SDG contribution and performance is more than a tactical initiative and qualitative mapping. It has more to do with zooming of hotspots activities in sync with VNR/NDC within the organisation's value chain or nation’s initiatives and measuring them to deduce the impact toward the 17 "UNSDGs" for 2030.
An optimized amalgamation of an activity’s scope, purpose, deployment level and timeframe are helpful in heading toward metric/KPI selection and finally designing the impact roadmap of any chosen activity. This will help authorities to quantify the impacts to check the performance and enable them to quantify the contribution toward 2030 goals individually.
TCS emphasizes that robust technology at the backend with strong system linkages is essential to operationalize double materiality and ensure investor-grade data quality & readiness—especially for corporates, governments and "UN"-aligned programs.
Not to miss the robust technology at the backend with system linkages for data quality & readiness would make the entire quantification spectrum more empowered.
This framework represents a systematic approach to quantify and interpret organisational and national contribution towards "UNSDGs", while aligning with global sustainability disclosure frameworks like VNR, NDC, WBCSD, GRI etc.
It connects narrowed down strategy, thrust areas, action plans and KPIs with performance, resource allocations, risks and opportunities to show how value is created over the short, medium, and long term.
From the TCS perspective, systems thinking combined with double materiality ensure completeness, comparability, and firmness, enabling reuse and scale
The framework is structured into five interlinked modules, each representing a key component of sustainable value delivery-
The chart on the below showcasea India’s performance score for each 17 SDG. This chart enables Indian businesses (an example) to align their sustainability strategy with national SDG gaps – essentially identify where their intervention is most needed and likely to be impactful. This radar chart suggests widening gap represents the highest need for localized intervention.
TCS’s view is that localized intervention aiming at inclusive and balanced roadmap of any region or province is hollow without collaborated efforts from the business entities in their region. By doing this, corporates not only align their net zero goals to that of their nation/ province but give them a strong chance to cement their sustenance. Moreover, measuring the activities and their impacts is highly beneficial to unravel the progression or regression for better capital allocation and value creation.
Below is a sample outcome to showcase how a government/organisation is performing toward the 17 SDGs. Through this effort, an authority can prioritize SDGs and plan weightage-based actions. After this, an authority would be proudly able to publish its SDG quantified contribution with impacts against SDGs.
While working on the framework, a few possible challenges and roadblocks were prominent and careful treatment to those would be beneficial while following the framework during execution by authorities.
In TCS’s view, challenges such as fragmented data, inconsistent attribution logic, weak double materiality thresholds, non-standardized indicators, and limited geo-context must be addressed through a digital-first, standards-based approach aligned with global good practices—especially for corporates, governments and "UN"-aligned bodies. Here are some of the recommendations to overcome the challenges below:
This SDG impact quantification process represents a significant leap forward in sustainability performance management. By combining purpose, global standard, attribution science, and contextual relevance, it ensures that authorities not only align with the SDGs but also deliver measurable, attributable, and credible impact that translate into long term value.
From the TCS viewpoint, mere alignment with SDGs will not be enough soon. Quantification of an entity’s impact against the SDGs will become an unavoidable strategic ask for corporates, governments and "UN"-aligned actors to survive in the ecosystem and generate value for stakeholders. Executing it sooner is highly significant seeing the fierce competition and limited pool of funds to march ahead and fight for existence. Measurable impacts against SDGs would bring an organisation/ nation in the spotlight for their contribution in building and emanating multidimensional impacts to bridge people, planet, and profit.