New York City - United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today released Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Impact Standards for Bond Issuers (Version 1.0),  following two rounds of public consultation. The SDG Impact Standards set us on a path to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and put impact at the heart of every consumption, employment, business, and investment decision.

Simultaneously, UNDP has kicked off the final public consultation for finalizing the SDG Impact Standards for Enterprises— from 31 March through May 2021, with an anticipated Version 1.0 release of the Standards by 30 June 2021. Feedback is sought from all interested stakeholders, including enterprises, investors, civil society, analysts, intermediaries, assurance providers and policy makers.

SDG Impact Standards are already being piloted in the market with New Development Bank’s (NDB) SDG bond issuance in China Interbank Bond Market last month.

“We are delighted that the responses overwhelmingly saw the important contribution that these Standards can make, in shifting the capital to fund the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are proud to see Issuers already piloting the standards, including NDB who last week announced a RMB 5 billion SDG Bond, utilizing the Standards and the SDG Finance Taxonomy (China) developed by UNDP,” said Marcos Neto, Director of UNDP Finance Sector Hub.

Enterprises and investors increasingly recognize that sustainable development is at the core of long-term value creation but are not yet systematically integrating sustainability and impact considerations in their decision-making. SDG Impact aims to help make this process easier through SDG Impact Standards.

“COVID-19 and long-term trends such as climate change and biodiversity reinforce how interconnected our future social, environmental and economic outcomes are. This makes impact management and advancing sustainable development in line with the SDGs even more important and urgent,” said Fabienne Michaux, Director of UNDP’s SDG Impact. 

A number of complementary SDG Impact tools are under development, including guidance, a glossary, assurance protocols, training for different actors across the capital and investment spectrum. To aid private sector partners deploying public capital, UNDP also collaborated with the OECD in the development of Impact Standards for Financing Sustainable Development (IS-FSD).

For more information on SDG Impact, visit the SDG Impact website and/or email sdgimpact.standards@undp.org.

About SDG Impact

A key part of this role is to engage actively with governments, enterprises and investors and help them fully integrate the SDGs into their business and investment decision-making and drive capital to where it is needed most.  SDG Impact is a ground-breaking UNDP initiative, catalyzing investment to achieve the SDGs by 2030 through three pillars of interrelated work:

· SDG Impact Management: comprising Standards for Private Equity Fund, Bond Issuers and Enterprises, an assurance framework and SDG Impact Seal and impact management education,

· SDG Impact Intelligence: comprising SDG investor maps of investable opportunity areas and business models via a searchable desktop platform, and

· SDG Impact Facilitation: focusing on investor and policy dialogues drawing on UNDP’s presence in over 170 countries, deep sustainable development expertise and relationships with governments and other influencers).  

On the ground in over 170 countries, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assists the UN Resident Coordinator and UN Country Teams to accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs. 

About UNDP

UNDP is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our broad network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations to build integrated, lasting solutions for people and planet. Learn more at undp.org or follow at @UNDP.