Many transformations within companies begin with something simple: a conversation after an event.
One morning, Pedro, an operations manager at a Portuguese industrial company, sat in an auditorium at CATÓLICA-LISBON to attend another edition of the SDG Meetings. He had already heard about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but that day something caught his attention: the idea that those seventeen global goals could serve as a map to organize many of the initiatives his company was already carrying out, from energy efficiency projects to programs supporting local communities.
When he returned to the office, Pedro decided to share the idea. He asked for a few minutes during an Executive Board meeting and presented the SDGs as a way to structure the company’s sustainability strategy. The CEO, João, listened with curiosity. There was no immediate decision, nor a formal plan at that moment, but the conversation had begun. In the following weeks, the SDGs reappeared in internal meetings, in discussions about new projects, and even in team presentations.
Gradually, what had started as a curiosity brought back from an event became a recurring topic within the organization.
Stories like these are not unusual. In fact, they illustrate well the current moment companies are experiencing in relation to sustainability and the 2030 Agenda.
Data from the fourth year of the study conducted by the Observatory of SDGs in Portuguese Companies shows that the Sustainable Development Goals have already secured a significant place in corporate strategic agendas.
Over the four years of the study, at least 82% of large companies and 67% of SMEs consider the incorporation of the SDGs into corporate strategy to be important. In many organizations, these goals are also beginning to guide concrete decisions. More than 85% of large companies and more than 62% of SMEs state that they take the value chain into account when selecting strategic SDGs, and the use of the SDGs to support decision-making increased by 15% among large companies and 18% among SMEs between 2022 and 2025. These figures suggest that the SDGs are gradually moving beyond being merely an institutional reference and are becoming a strategic framework within companies.
Even so, there is still room for progress in relation to the SDGs.
Among large companies, 94.7% believe that employees demonstrate positive motivation regarding sustainability topics. When the question focuses specifically on the SDGs, however, only 51.8% consider employee motivation for these goals to be positive. Among SMEs, the difference is similarly visible. While 71.1% of companies consider employee motivation toward sustainability in general to be positive, only 39.7% say the same regarding the SDGs.
At the same time, an interesting and almost controversial finding emerges. Among large companies, 48.2% consider it important that the organization cultivate an SDG-oriented culture that encourages the sharing of inspiring ideas, while 17.9% state that they already have a culture that is oriented toward and knowledgeable about the SDGs, directly associating it with team motivation and productivity.
Another indicator helps clarify this phenomenon: internal incentives. Among large companies, 53.6% already associate employee compensation incentives with sustainability objectives, an increase of 20.8%age points compared with the second year of the study. When sustainability becomes part of evaluation and reward systems, it also tends to gain greater relevance in everyday decisions. Once these incentives are created, the next step becomes relatively simple: linking them with the SDG framework, allowing internal performance objectives to align with global sustainable development goals.
Among SMEs, the situation is different. Around 80.7% of companies have no association between internal incentives and sustainability or SDG objectives. This suggests that in many smaller organizations the integration of sustainability still depends largely on the initiative of particularly motivated leaders or employees.
It is precisely at this point that stories like Pedro’s become meaningful. Beyond external pressures, such as regulatory requirements or conditions for accessing financing, organizational transformation can begin or gain momentum with a conversation, a short presentation during a management meeting, or a new idea brought from outside the company.
The experience of recent years shows that sustainability has already secured a place within Portuguese companies. The challenge now is different. It is no longer only about recognizing the importance of the global agenda, but about mobilizing people within organizations to make it happen.
The next phase of the Sustainable Development Goals will be defined, to a large extent, by how employees, managers, and business leaders integrate these goals into the everyday decisions of organizations. On March 20, at CATÓLICA-LISBON, this will be one of the themes discussed during the launch event of the fourth Annual Report of the Observatory.
Because, in the end, the SDGs are both a global agenda and an agenda of motivation, leadership, and action within companies.
Adriana Zani, Operations and Project Manager I Researcher Center for Responsible Business and Leadership at CATÓLICA-LISBON