Advancing UN Sustainable Development Goals through IFC’s Environmental, Social, and Governance Standards

Developing countries face an annual financing deficit of $4.3 trillion to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The private sector plays a key role in mobilizing resources for sustainable solutions and building greater resilience. To date, limited attention has been given to how the private sector’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk management practices can contribute to the realization of universal goals, such as the SDGs.

To address this gap, IFC, with support from the SDG Partnership Fund, has developed a Private Sector Guide and Dataset to assist the private sector in leveraging ESG risk management approaches to contribute to achieving the SDGs.

This resource provides companies and investors linkages between IFC’s ESG Standards (the Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability and Corporate Governance Methodology) and the Sustainable Development Goals, targets, and indicators, facilitating the integration of ESG risk management practices and development opportunities. While the Private Sector Guide presents a high-level overview of the alignment between IFC’s ESG Standards and the SDGs, the Dataset offers an in-depth mapping of the Standards against the SDGs in a searchable format.