To achieve the SDGs, finance is a key enabler. However, the lack of data along with limited information and awareness among some key players are major challenges in redirecting financial resources at scale towards the SDGs. To help address this challenge, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) developed the SDG Investor Map, a market intelligence tool for investors and businesses to identify investment opportunity areas (IOAs) with potential to generating both business returns and development impact.
The Map is designed for all stakeholders to use for business strategy development, policy-making and consultancy. In China, UNDP launched the initiative in 2020, focusing on two sectors—health and agriculture. The second phase, which began in 2021, centers around China’s dual carbon goals, and explores investment opportunities in the circular economy, as well as renewable energy.  
Following a globally standardized 8-step methodology to shape a data matrix with four key dimensions, 18 investment opportunity areas (IOAs) under seven sub-sectors were identified with 20 data points for analyzing the eligibility of each IOA. These data points cover information about industrial landscapes, regional locations, business models, investment returns, policy enablers, market infrastructure, development needs, SDG tagging, impact indicators, etc. (IOAs are accessible on the SDG Investor Platform).