Aligning Your Project Portfolios with Sustainability Goals and SDGs
Project portfolios are how organizations turn their strategies into action. As such, they are one of the most powerful tools to achieve sustainability goals. And it is exactly for this reason that you should align your project portfolio with the SDGs.
- You can align your portfolios with the SDGs by, for example, mapping the SDGs to each project in your portfolio and assigning one or more SDGs to each project for clarity.
- Then, you can use the Global Indicator Framework to measure progress towards each SDG Target.
An example:
SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) is linked to target 12.5, which aims to substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse. This can be measured by target 12.5.1, which is the national recycling rate in tons of material recycled.
A common problem is that people are simply not aware that the Global Indicator Framework exists and they stop at SDG level. For example, they would assign SDG 12 to the product development of a sustainable consumer good, but they would not take the next step and assign quantitative indicators (e.g. 12.5.1).
Because success is difficult to measure in this way, I would recommend always taking that next step.
If this is still not far enough, you can always add more complexity and efforts as you see fit. For example, you can structure programs around specific SDGs or introduce prioritization based on the individual contribution to the SDGs.