As an international non-governmental organization in special consultative status with the ECOSOC, the Association for Supporting the SDGs for the United Nations (ASD) annually announces the SDGBI that analyzes the corporate sustainability of 3000 companies around the world. The Sustainable Development Goals Business Index (SDGBI) is a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-based Corporate Sustainability Analysis Index for global corporations, submitted as a written statement (E/2019/NGO/91) at the High-Level Segment(HLS) of the 2019 High-Level Political Forum(HLPF). Since 2016, the Association for Supporting the SDGs for the UN (ASD) has been announcing the SDGBI, and recently it has been introduced as a tool of sustainable business engagement and ESG evaluation index.

The SDGBI is designed to rank companies by first evaluating them based on indicators and categorizing the sum of the evaluations according to their criteria. The evaluations are scored on 12 criteria and 45 indicators on a scale of 0 to 100 in four main fields of social, environment, economy, and policy. Businesses are evaluated on their efforts in social responsibility, environmental protection, innovative infrastructure, and so forth. They are then categorized into four groups (Excellent, Superior, Outstanding, Pathfinder) according to their total scores. A total of 45 indicators are applied to the 5 points Likert Scale (a psychometric response scale in which measures the level of agreement to subjective concepts such as attitude, emotions, and logic) in evaluation. The scores are summed up and calculated into weighted arithmetic mean to determine the rank of major enterprises in different fields. The CES production function (indicating the technical relationship between the input of production elements and output of the products throughout a certain period) is applied to the equation, calculating the composite index of the SDGBI.

The SDGBI is a business analysis and evaluation index based on the 17 SDGs; it has been announced every October since 2016 by ASD, becoming one of the highly considered standards within the field of the implementation of SDGs and sustainable management. It has been submitted as a written statement (E/2019/NGO/91) at the High-Level Segment of the 2019 High-Level Political Forum. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (2016~2018) SDGBI analyzed 500 Korean corporations. 140 corporations were selected as the final groups. In 2019 and 2020, 3,000 global corporations were analyzed and a total of 473 corporations were evaluated as SDGBI.

2020 SDGBI Global Excellent Group includes NESTLÉ / ALPHABET / TESLA, INC. / HENNES & MAURITZ (H&M) / ADIDAS / KERING GROUP / PFIZER / BLACKROCK / KT. Superior Group includes SK HYNIX / INTEL CORPORATION / SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS / THE COCA-COLA COMPANY / HYUNDAI DEPARTMENT STORE / THE BOEING COMPANY / CJ CHEILJEDANG / ALCOA / LVMH MOËT HENNESSY - LOUIS VUITTON SE etc. Outstanding Group includes OLAM INTERNATIONAL / WALMART / IMPOSSIBLE FOODS / CJ ENM / LENOVO / LINKEDIN / L’OREAL / WALT DISNEY / IBM etc. 2020 SDGBI Excellent Group in Korea includes HYUNDAI ENGINEERING CO.,LTD. / CJ LOGISTICS / HYUNDAI MALL / ILDONG PHARMACEUTICAL CO.,LTD / SK / KOREAN AIR. Superior Group includes BYN BLACKYAK CO.,LTD. / HANSOT / KB KOOKMIN CARD CORP. / KOREA EAST-WEST POWER CO.,LTD / HYUNDAI GREEN FOOD / HANDSOME / HYUNDAI LIVART / CJ OLIVE YOUNG / BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT / KIM & CHANG / KOREA INCLUSIVE FINANCE AGENCY / CREDIT COUNSELING AND RECOVERY SERVICE. Outstanding Group includes HANSSEM / WOOWA BROTHERS CORP. / MANDO CORP. / LG ELECTRONICS / EVERDIGM etc. Corporations of the top 2020 SDGBI group are issued an ESG certification from ASD and will be supported with a wide range of opportunities such as ESG finance.

Association for Supporting the SDGs for the UN