A grouping of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their influence on business results: An analysis for Spanish companies

Research background: In 2015, the United Nations (UN) set the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and established 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) containing the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable development. These focus on governments, society, non-profit organisations, and the private sector. This last pillar plays a key role in the pursuit of these goals, but there remains a lack of knowledge regarding how companies achieve the SDGs. Purpose of the article: Some authors have analysed the effect of companies' adoption of the SDGs on their business performance. However, there is a gap in the analysis of this influence when considering the groups of SDGs. This study examines the level of commitment of a sample of Spanish companies with a grouping of the SDGs and their effects on business results. Methods: We obtained information on companies from the UNGC and developed a panel regression. Findings & value added: We concluded that all the SDGs do not have the same effect on companies that incorporate them into their activities. Although it is possible to make progress in all the SDGs, complementarities and trade-offs influence companies' results. The results obtained in this study incorporate new ideas into this issue and provide a new vision of how companies should incorporate sustainability into their businesses. It is not a question of achieving as many sustainable development goals as possible, but rather of focusing on those that can contribute the most to improving business performance. The clustering of the SDGs that we have undertaken and their subsequent analysis facilitates this work.