Sustainable Development Goals in the ICT sector

Abstract

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set the Agenda for 2030 to foster prosperity for people and the planet. Since their introduction in 2015, the SDGs have gained political and corporate traction. Several studies have analysed how companies report on their impacts on the goals, but insights on how specific industries contribute towards the SDGs are yet to be obtained. Hence, our work focuses on how companies in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector contribute to the SDGs. We have investigated what methods exist to rigorously assess the SDG performance of companies since such methods provide guidance during the assessments and mitigate the risk of greenwashing. Next, we have analysed sustainability reports of the 23 biggest ICT companies to find out how these companies report on the SDGs. Moreover, we have compiled a comprehensive overview to show which SDGs receive attention in the ICT sector and what activities the businesses undertake to realise the goals. We have also presented how many of these activities can be verified by finding evidences such as publicly available data. Interestingly, we have found that none of the 23 companies uses any of the methods specifically engineered to assess SDG contributions, instead, they apply tailor-made methods. By highlighting the state of the art on SDG assessment methods and uncovering the state of practice in SDG reporting by top companies, we hope to inspire ICT companies to improve their efforts in realising Agenda 2030 and open new research avenues on the application of the SDG framework within (and outside) the ICT sector.