Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The Sustainable Development Goals, commonly known as the SDGs, are a set of 17 global goals adopted by all United Nations member countries in 2015. They provide a shared framework for addressing the world's most pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges by the year 2030.

The 17 goals cover a wide range of interconnected issues. They include ending poverty and hunger, ensuring quality education, achieving gender equality, providing clean water and affordable energy, promoting decent work and economic growth, reducing inequality, taking action on climate change, and building peaceful and inclusive societies. Each goal has specific targets, and there are 169 targets in total across the full framework. The SDGs apply to every country, including Australia, and are designed to guide decisions made by governments, businesses, and communities. The full list of goals is available at sdgs.un.org/goals.

For the Australian social enterprise sector, the SDGs provide a common language for describing social and environmental impact. Many social enterprises align their work to one or more of the SDGs as a way of connecting their local activities to global priorities. A jobs-focused social enterprise might reference SDG 8, which is about decent work and economic growth. An enterprise working in affordable housing might connect its work to SDG 11, which focuses on sustainable cities and communities. An organisation delivering services for people experiencing poverty might align with SDG 1 and SDG 10, which address poverty and reduced inequalities. Using the SDGs as a reference point can also help social enterprises communicate their impact to funders, investors, and government partners who are familiar with the framework. Some impact measurement tools and reporting frameworks in Australia explicitly ask organisations to map their activities to relevant SDGs.

It is worth keeping in mind that the SDGs are a high-level global framework, not a measurement system in themselves. Saying that an organisation contributes to a particular goal does not automatically demonstrate how much impact it is having or how directly its work connects to that goal. There is a risk of SDG-washing, where organisations claim alignment with the goals for reputational purposes without being able to back that up with evidence. The SDGs are most useful when they complement, rather than substitute for, rigorous impact measurement and honest reporting. For First Nations communities in Australia, several SDGs are particularly relevant, including those relating to poverty, health, education, and reduced inequalities, though it is important that progress against these goals is measured and led by communities themselves, in ways that reflect their own priorities and self-determination.