Integrating the United Nations sustainable development goals into organizational strategy: A sustainability balanced scorecard approach using ANP and TOPSIS

Abstract

Challenges related to sustainable development require companies to align their strategies to meet stakeholder interests systematically. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are guiding objectives for sustainable development on an international level up to 2030. This article links the goals of the SDGs to a recognized strategic management tool: the sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC). So far, few approaches exist in this field. Consequently, this article presents a framework for developing and applying an SBSC that takes an integrative view of the SDGs. For this purpose, the analytic network process (ANP) and the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution are applied (TOPSIS). The article concludes that the solution approach presented has considerable potential to support organizations in systematically integrating the SDGs into their strategy. Also, this article proposes interesting future research directions.