Service
Sustainability Services
Ecosystem-led Approach to Power Your Sustainability Strategy
Highlights
- Elevate the performance standards across environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and corporate governance parameters within reporting boundaries by nurturing a robust ecosystem
- Real impact of these SDGs is hollow without the active role from the private organisations as this vision is all about tuning policies & actions in sync with UNSDGs while maintaining profits
- 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.
On this page
On this pageinpage
Quantifying sustainability goals
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.
Potential challenges observed with recommendations
Current state view vs voice of the stakeholders
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.
17 UNSDG Goals
Impact quantification construct
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.
Impact Quantification Construct
SDG prioritization framework
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
SDG Prioritization Framework (Own Creation)
Architecture overview
The framework is structured into five interlinked modules, each representing a key component of sustainable value delivery-
- Strategic integration: Depending on the requirement surfaced as an input from any of the corporate functions or province, this grid guides the entity to map with applicable sustainability reporting frameworks to target and then to its indicators based on the existing reported KPIs by the authorities. These indicators are aligned with global frameworks while feeding directly into the ESG data infrastructure. This grid would help slice a goal to metric level data point which is measurable and verifiable to check the contribution against the mapped SDG.
- Indicator mapping & methodology: Based on the relevancy and feasibility of measurement and control, evaluation will be performed. It is significant to track performance against the SDG targets against pre-set baseline. The calculation methodology for each indicator is standardized to ensure traceability and comparability in a particular sector. This process ensures corporate/ provincial indicators are fit for SDG translation and ready for impact attribution.
- Geo-specific interpretation: Recognising that SDG targets are localised, this module link company indicators to national SDG indicators based on VNRs, regional plans and NDCs. It allows contextual scaling of contributions (e.g. harvesting rainwater in water-stressed areas has a higher impact) and supports intensity-based prioritization. Localization also deals well on the policy front as these policies are drafted on a national/provinces/state level considering the local ask and happenings.
- Attribution vs contribution continuum: The attribution logic ensures impacts are not overclaimed and traces the true role of the intervention by the authorities. As the outcomes and impact are at an organisational/ national level involving multiple stakeholders, it becomes significant to assign the impact observed to a particular stakeholder or action. The degree of attribution and contribution varies depending on the impact of being influenced by action(s) or stakeholder(s). This also involves logic building based on interventions (counterfactual, causal, full/partial, shared and influence) for creating impact.
- Value creation against focus areas: Finally, contributions are mapped to the global agenda. Value creation from framework is well served and linked with KPIs. This way it can be safely assumed that the real time regression/ progression is synced with the overall strategic objectives. Alignment with other global reporting standards VNR, NDC, WBCSD, GRI etc. would make the impact calculations more standardized, and informed.
An example: VNR submission along with ESG value capture & measurable impact analysis
How to prioritize SDG - a case example
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.
A case example: SDG prioritization based on Niti Ayog scorecard
Potential challenges observed with recommendations
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:
Sample outcome to showcase how a government/organisation is performing toward the 17 SDGs.
Conclusion
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.
Impact Analysis Architecture Overview