The 17 SDGs explicitly call on businesses to use creativity and innovation to address development challenges and recognize the need for governments to encourage sustainability reporting.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals constitute a universal, integrated and transformative vision for a sustainable world. For the goals to be reached, the UN General Secretary has called on everyone to do their part: governments, the private sector, and civil society. They explicitly call on businesses to use creativity and innovation to address development challenges and recognize the need for governments to encourage sustainability reporting (United Nations, 2024).

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global authority on the environment.
UNEP’s mission is to inspire, inform, and enable nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
For over 50 years, UNEP has worked with governments, civil society, the private sector and UN entities to address humanity’s most pressing environmental challenges - from restoring the ozone layer to protecting the world's seas and promoting a green, inclusive economy (UNEP, 2024).

UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative for companies that are willing to set in motion changes to business operations so that the UN Global Compact and its Ten Principles become part of strategy, culture and day-to-day operations.
UN Global Compact ambition is to accelerate and scale the global collective impact of business by upholding the Ten Principles and delivering the SDGs through accountable companies and ecosystems that enable change.
To make this happen, the UN Global Compact supports companies to do business responsibly by aligning their strategies and operations with Ten Principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and take strategic actions to advance broader societal goals, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation (United Nations, 2024).

COP (Conference of the Parties) is a series of United Nations climate change conferences, which have been running since 1995.

The goal of these conferences is to review progress made by members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to limit climate change (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, 2024).

CDP is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts.
The world’s economy looks to CDP as the gold standard of environmental reporting with the richest and most comprehensive dataset on corporate and city action.
Over the past 20 years CDP have created a system that has resulted in unparalleled engagement on environmental issues worldwide.
CDP was established as the ‘Carbon Disclosure Project’ in 2000, asking companies to disclose their climate impact. Since then, CDP have broadened the scope of environmental disclosure, to incorporate deforestation and water security, while also building our reach to support cities, states and regions. By shortening our name to ‘CDP’ (in 2013) have been able to both preserve the global brand we were known for and address the necessity of understanding wider environmental impact.
CDP launched a new strategy that expanded our horizons further still to cover all planetary boundaries. CDP ambition continues to grow, expanding to new areas such as biodiversity, plastics and oceans, and recognising the interconnectedness of nature and earth’s systems (CDP, 2024).

ISO 14000 family- Environmental management

For companies and organizations of any type that require practical tools to manage their environmental responsibilities, there’s the ISO 14000 family.
International Standards on environmental management provide tools for a strategic approach to environmental issues. The best-known such standard is ISO 14001, setting out the criteria for an environmental management system (EMS). Together with a set of supporting documents it forms the ISO 14000 family of standards (ISO, 2024).

The PRI is the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment. It works:

• to understand the investment implications of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors;
• to support its international network of investor signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment and ownership decisions.

The PRI acts in the long-term interests:

• of its signatories;
• of the financial markets and economies in which they operate;
• and ultimately of the environment and society as a whole.

The PRI is truly independent. It encourages investors to use responsible investment to enhance returns and better manage risks, but does not operate for its own profit; it engages with global policymakers but is not associated with any government; it is supported by, but not part of, the United Nations.

One of the essential functions of financial markets is to price risk to support informed, efficient capital-allocation decisions. To carry out this function, financial markets need accurate and timely disclosure from companies. Without the right information, investors and others may incorrectly price or value assets, leading to a misallocation of capital.
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) created the TCFD to develop recommendations on the types of information that companies should disclose to support investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters in appropriately assessing and pricing a specific set of risks—risks related to climate change.
In 2017, the TCFD released climate-related financial disclosure recommendations designed to help companies provide better information to support market transparency and more informed capital allocation.
Our disclosure recommendations are structured around four thematic areas that represent core elements of how companies operate: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. The four recommendations are interrelated and supported by 11 recommended disclosures that build out the framework with information that should help investors and others understand how reporting organizations think about and assess climate-related risks and opportunities.
Following the publication of the TCFD recommendations, the FSB requested the Task Force promote adoption of the TCFD framework, providing further guidance, supporting educational efforts, monitoring climate-related financial disclosure practices in terms of their alignment with the TCFD recommendations, and preparing annual status reports through 2023.
Upon delivery of the Task Force’s 2023 Status Report, and on request of the Financial Stability Board, the TCFD has now been disbanded (TCFD, 2024).

GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is the independent, international organization that helps businesses and other organizations take responsibility for their impacts, by providing them with the global common language to communicate those impacts.
The GRI Secretariat is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and we have a network of seven regional offices to ensure we support organizations and stakeholders worldwide (GRI, 2024).

SASB Standards help companies disclose relevant sustainability information to their investors. Available for 77 industries, the SASB Standards identify the sustainability-related risks and opportunities most likely to affect an entity’s cash flows, access to finance and cost of capital over the short, medium or long term and the disclosure topics and metrics that are most likely to be useful to investors.
As of August 2022, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) of the IFRS Foundation assumed responsibility for the SASB Standards. The ISSB has committed to maintain, enhance and evolve the SASB Standards and encourages preparers and investors to continue to use the SASB Standards (SASB, 2024).

The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) (previously the International Integrated Reporting Committee) was formed in August 2010 and aims to create a globally accepted framework for a process that results in communications by an organisation about value creation over time.
The IIRC brings together a cross section of representatives from corporate, investment, accounting, securities, regulatory, academic and standard-setting sectors as well as civil society.
It comprises a Steering Committee, a Working Group and a three taskforces (dealing with content development, engagement and communications, and governance).
The International Integrated Reporting Framework and Integrated Thinking Principles have been developed and are used around the world, in 75 countries, to advance communication about value creation, preservation and erosion.
The cycle of integrated reporting and thinking result in efficient and productive capital allocation, acting as a force for financial stability and sustainable development (IIRC, 2024).