A milestone for authentic sustainability measurement. The Vienna Stock Exchange (Wiener Börse) has integrated sustainability widgets — powered by UNRISD’s Sustainable Development Performance Indicators (SDPI) — across all companies listed in its prime market segment.
Through a partnership with Austrian start-up money:care, which combines the SDPI framework with AI-supported data collection and expert analysis, investors accessing the Vienna Stock Exchange website now have transparent, user-friendly access to ESG-relevant data grounded in sustainability science rather than corporate self-reporting. The assessment draws on a curated set of 12 key indicators spanning climate, society, and gender, measured against clearly defined sustainability thresholds — including the CO₂ budget aligned with the 1.5°C target, CEO-to-worker pay ratios, gender pay gaps, and board gender composition.
This is what happens when a UN research framework moves from policy papers to market infrastructure — when sustainability measurement is embedded where capital allocation decisions are actually made.
The SDPI did not arrive here by accident. It is the product of years of collective effort — and of partners who believed in it.
The SDPI research project — including the development of the indicator framework, the User Manual, and the pilot testing — was funded by the Center for Social Value Enhancement Studies (CSES) (we had wonderful collaborators, including Mr Seonghoon Park and Mr Seung Jun Hur), Republic of Korea. Since 2025, the SDPI Online Platform — which provides an open-access, easy-to-use tool for organizations to assess their sustainability performance — has been supported by ASETT (Arizmendiarrieta Social Economy Think Tank), the international hub for social economy research and practice based in the Basque Country, Spain. We are deeply grateful to both CSES and ASETT for making this work possible.
The SDPI framework was shaped by a dedicated Expert Advisory Group — Mark McElroy (Center for Sustainable Organizations), Marguerite Mendell (Concordia University / Karl Polanyi Institute), Sonja Novkovic (Saint Mary’s University), Peter Utting (former Deputy Director of UNRISD), Tatiana Krylova, and Manpreet Singh — who provided essential intellectual leadership on the conceptual foundations and indicator design. Bill Baue and Ralph Thurm of r3.0 also provided invaluable inputs throughout the development process.
In 2021, more than two dozen organizations stepped forward to pilot test the indicators in a process managed by r3.0, with support from the Center for Sustainable Organizations. Pilot participants ranged from large for-profit enterprises such as Anglo American, Manulife, and SK hynix, to social and solidarity economy organizations including Mondragon cooperatives in Spain, Cabot Creamery Cooperative in the US, Vancity in Canada, and Grameen Vikas Kendram Society in India, as well as intermediaries such as the World Bank, Impact Management Project, and World Benchmarking Alliance. Their willingness to test, challenge, and refine the indicators was decisive in shaping the framework we have today.
Since its release, a remarkable community of practitioners, researchers, and advocates has been carrying the SDPI forward — promoting its uptake, training new users, and building the ecosystem around it. I want to acknowledge and thank each of them:
Iñigo Albizuri Landazabal (ASETT / Mondragon Corporation), Bill Baue (r3.0), Nassima Bekhechi (HEC Montreal / SF Factor), Adriana Eufrosina Bora (Mila – Quebec AI Institute / QUT), Jean Cadieux (Université de Sherbrooke), Christina A. Clamp (American Sustainable Business Network), Jed Davis (Cabot Creamery Cooperative), Elisangela Domingues Vaz (UNESP-Brazil / HEC Montreal), Hyungsik Eum (International Cooperative Alliance), Tatiana Glad (Impact Hub Network), Minjung Go (CSES), Heike Grosch (Matching Fusion), Katharina Herzog (money:care), Seung Jun Hur (CSES), Katsuji Imata (SIMI Japan), Goran Jeras (Cooperative for Ethical Financing / Echoes Srl), Eun Sun Lee (Gyeongsang National University), Yukyeong Choe, Mark W. McElroy (Center for Sustainable Organizations), Marguerite Mendell (Concordia University), Sonja Novkovic (Saint Mary’s University), Michael A. Peck (Own The Metrics / 1worker1vote), Delilah Rothenberg (Predistribution Initiative), Amy Seidman (Noble Profit / BFlo Technology), Peter Utting (former UNRISD Deputy Director), Rafael Ziegler (HEC Montréal / IICADD), Ibon Zugasti (Prospektiker-LKS Mondragon), and Yvonne Zwick (B.A.U.M. e.V., Germany).
From the SDPI Manual, to the Online Platform, to the Vienna Stock Exchange — this journey shows that rigorous, transformative sustainability tools developed with public purpose can find their way into the heart of the financial system. It is a collective achievement, and it belongs to everyone named above and many more.
#SDPI #UNRISD #SustainableDevelopment #ESG #AuthenticSustainability #ViennaStockExchange #ImpactInvesting #SustainabilityReporting #SocialAndSolidarityEconomy #SocialEconomy