Material ESG Outcomes and SDG Externalities: Evaluating the Health Care Sector’s Contribution to the SDGs

Abstract

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have created a framework for environmental and social impacts, which institutional investors and corporations are using to guide resource allocation or highlight SDG-aligned investments already in place. We argue that the SDGs have clarified certain elements predominantly missing or implicit in many environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards, specifically focusing on companies’ E and S externalities. Methodologically, we analyze how health care companies contribute to SDG 3 on health and well-being as a case, mapping the goal’s targets to the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board’s (SASB’s) 30 generic ESG issues and considering both financially material and immaterial ESG issues, based on SASB. Using an innovative data set, we highlight where private sector firms contribute to SDG impacts and where their financial priorities might lie. Where firms are either not contributing or perhaps unable to, we point to the need for public sector activities.