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SDG2000: the 2,000 most influential companies in 2022

Seven years after the creation of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the fragility of our systems, widening inequality by leaving too many people behind. Even prior to the pandemic, the world was not on track to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

As pointed out recently in the World Economic Forum (WEF) report Global Risks 2022, the climate and social crises as well as biodiversity loss top this year’s list of global risks by severity. However, the biggest risk is ‘inaction’, WEF warned.

In 2022, the world still lacks a mechanism to hold the private sector accountable on their impact to planet and people. Many companies avoid their responsibility and don’t take the urgent actions needed. Those that do live up to their responsibility are not rewarded accordingly by society.

For companies to support the transformations needed to put our planet and society in a truly sustainable path, substantial changes must be made to the way in which they operate – ones that put people at the heart of any decisions made. There must be also a change how we all work together as part of the ecosystem so that companies are enabled to move in this direction through the right incentives and policies. Explore WBA transformations

new WBA system wheel 2021

With that mission in mind, the World Benchmarking Alliance was founded to incentivise responsible business practices that underpin inclusive and equitable economies and enable systems transformations that happen in a way that leaves no one behind. Read more about WBA mission

Holding companies accountable does require doing the hard, often unseen and ‘unglamorous’ work of collaborating, driven by the understanding that only collectively will achieve the targets for sustainable development in 2030.

Every January since 2020, the World Benchmarking Alliance publishes the SDG2000 list, which outlines the 2000 companies that have the most influence in contributing to the achievement of the SDGs.

Explore the SDG2000 interactive list

More research insights will be published in February here. In the meantime we invite you to explore the SDG2000 interactive list or download the raw data set.

Download the SDG2000 data set
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