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SDG Ambition is an initiative to challenge thousands of companies to raise their level of ambition to meet the needs of society and planet by fully integrating sustainability into business strategy and operations.

*Application for the 2024/2025 SDG Ambition Accelerator is now closed.

Programme Overview

The need for SDG Ambition today is clear. The world is not delivering progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the pace and scale required. While it is still possible to shift the world towards a 1.5°C trajectory and achieve the SDGs by 2030, it requires urgent, scalable, and multi-stakeholder action to dramatically accelerate progress.

As the 2030 Agenda deadline approaches, companies are under increasing pressure from stakeholders to set and achieve ambitious corporate goals that address complex sustainability challenges, build business resilience, and enable long-term growth.

SDG Ambition is a three-month accelerator programme that supports participating companies of the UN Global Compact in setting ambitious corporate targets and accelerating the integration of the SDGs into core business management - helping organisations meet growing stakeholder demands and investor expectations.

Led by the UN Global Compact in partnership with SAP and Accenture, SDG Ambition empowers and equips participating companies of the UN Global Compact to develop and implement innovative business strategies that significantly increase their positive impact on the SDGs. Through the Global Compact Local Networks in 60+ countries, participating companies have the opportunity to assess current performance, identify risk areas, discover new opportunities across business units and functions, and take ambitious business action towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.

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Programme Benefits

Participants learn how to:

  • Strategically prioritise actions that accelerate their company's contribution to the 2030 Agenda
  • Set targets aligned with absolute benchmarks that may seem aspirational but are critical to spearheading the transformation of economies and societies
  • Approach sustainability management and design new systems integrating the SDGs
  • Build a business case and generate sustainability buy-in within their company

Participants gain:

  • A clear understanding of baseline impacts across the business in creating a comprehensive sustainability strategy
  • The ability to achieve ambitious goals aimed at galvanising business action with what is required to achieve the SDGs
  • An overview of how to integrate and mainstream ambitious sustainability goals across business units by pioneering a performance integration approach that utilises enabling technologies
  • The foundational tools and understanding to build a business case
  • Insight into industries with an outsized impact on the SDGs

Expected Outcomes

SDG Ambition challenges and support companies to:

  • Understand baseline impacts across the business and benchmark with other companies across industries;
  • Undertake strategic prioritisation based on an inclusive understanding of their positive and negative impacts across the value chain and operations;
  • Set ambitious goals inspired by the SDGs and Ten Principles that align with and enhance core business strategy;
  • Integrate and mainstream ambitious sustainability goals across business and with external partners utilising a balanced scorecard inclusive of the SDGs and the Ten Principles;
  • Demonstrate how technologies can provide transparency, measurement, and enable innovation with purpose;
  • Commit and track progress over time with the Communication On Progress.

At the conclusion of the SDG Ambition Accelerator, participants will have: 

  •  one or more revised or new goals aligned with an SDG Ambition Benchmark on a priority topic 
  •  a Mapped Integration Journey that outlines how they will achieve it, and  
  • a clear plan of action to implement the SDG Ambition Approach going forward within 6 months of completing the accelerator. 

Programme structure

Module 1
Module 2 
Module 3
Participants align on their vision, prioritise an SDG Ambition Benchmark and set ambitious goals.  Participants ideate and build out pathways, evaluate the consequences and develop a business case for an SDG Ambition Benchmark.   Participants identify success metrics, key technologies, and capabilities to help implement their goals, craft their pitch and define next steps.  

The Programme is delivered through a mixture of online and in-person workshops facilitated by Impact International. The Accelerator runs from January to April 2025.

The applications for the 2024/2025 SDG Ambition Accelerator are now closed.

Download the SDG Ambition resources below:

Ambition Guide: Setting Goals for the Decade of Action establishes the initial set of SDG Ambition benchmarks that challenge organisations to set more ambitious goals and targets in the areas in which business is positioned to have a substantial impact. Business leaders can use this document to support their strategy and set goals ambitious enough to deliver the SDGs by 2030.

Integration Guide: Designing Business Systems for the SDGs presents the approach through which the 10 SDG Ambition benchmarks can be integrated into core business processes and systems to enable effective measurement and management of sustainability performance. Business leaders can use this publication to identify the system opportunities to integrate the SDGs into core business processes.

SDG Ambition Benchmark Reference Sheets provide illustrative details regarding the steps to integrate each of these benchmarks into a company’s business systems, as well as the key design decision required to engage technology.

Questions? For any questions about the SDG Ambition Accelerator, please see our FAQs or contact Lea Burkart, Governance and SDGs Project Manager.

We are delighted to have worked with the following UN Global Compact Network UK members over the past 4 years:

SDG Ambition past participants

2020 - 2021

SDG Ambition Accelerator 2022 past participants

2021 - 2022

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2022 - 2023

SDG Ambition Accelerator - 20232024 Cohort

2023 - 2024