Achieving the 2030 Agenda: Mapping the Landscape of Corporate Sustainability Goals and Policies in the European Union

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) were introduced in 2015 to advance the 2030 Agenda of sustainable development in all supporting countries. The SDGs are applicable to countries, non-governmental organizations, industries, and companies. In this article, we focus on the contribution of listed companies headquartered in the European Union (EU) to the SDGs. The EU intends to be the front-runner in the race for sustainable development and has adopted comprehensive strategies that mirror the UN SDGs. For this reason, we collected relevant data points from the Refinitiv Eikon database for 1156 companies headquartered in EU countries for the financial year 2022. The data collected refer to contributions to each SDG and the adoption of corporate sustainability policies. Data were statistically analyzed per country and sector to generate a comprehensive image of industry contributions to the SDGs in the EU. By applying a comparative analysis of country-level achievements and policies, the results point to four EU countries that are significant contributors to the SDGs through their economic activities. At the same time, other EU countries are still facing significant challenges in this domain. The socioeconomic considerations for these cases are laid out in the Discussion section. The present article offers a snapshot of corporate contributions to the SDGs as climate and geopolitical challenges become more prominent.