CSR and the Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 global goals for 2030, agreed by every member of the United Nations, India included. Indian CSR law doesn’t require companies to use them, but they give CSR teams and NGOs a shared language: Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 says what CSR money may be spent on, and the SDGs help say what that spending is meant to change.

This guide explains the goals in brief, how India measures its progress, how Schedule VII maps onto the SDGs, how to choose targets and indicators for a project, and how to avoid SDG-washing: claims about the goals that your evidence can’t support.

The SDGs in brief

On 25 September 2015, all 193 UN member states adopted Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs at its heart came into effect on 1 January 2016 and run until 2030. They work in three layers:

• 17 goals, broad ambitions such as Goal 4, Quality Education;
• 169 targets, specific commitments under the goals, most with a deadline;
• indicators, the measures that track each target: the UN’s global list has 234 unique indicators after its March 2026 update.

Serious SDG work happens at the level of targets. Goal 4 is a direction; target 4.1, that by 2030 all girls and boys complete free, equitable and good-quality primary and secondary education, is a commitment; and indicator 4.1.1, the share of children reaching at least a minimum level in reading and mathematics, tells you whether you are getting there. The Agenda’s central promise, to leave no one behind, means looking at who is missing from the averages.

How India tracks the SDGs

NITI Aayog, the government’s policy think tank, coordinates India’s work on the SDGs, and its SDG India Index, launched in 2018, compares states and union territories. Each gets a score from 0 to 100 for each goal and overall, where 100 means the 2030 target has been met.

The latest edition, the fourth, is the SDG India Index 2023-24, released on 12 July 2024, and as of October 2026 there is no later one. It covers 16 goals, 70 targets and 113 indicators, of which 100 are aligned with the national indicator list.

The bands are Aspirant (0 to 49), Performer (50 to 64), Front Runner (65 to 99) and Achiever (100).

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) keeps India’s own list of SDG indicators, the National Indicator Framework (NIF), and publishes a progress report on it every year on 29 June, Statistics Day. The 2026 edition has 277 national indicators covering all 17 goals, down from 284 in 2025. States and union territories keep their own State Indicator Frameworks.

Globally, the Sustainable Development Report 2026, published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network on 28 June 2026, ranked India 94th, its highest position so far, with a score of 68.3, up from 99th in 2025.

Mapping Schedule VII to the SDGs

Schedule VII lists the areas CSR money can be spent on. It was written separately from the SDGs, and it names them in only one place: item (ix)(b) allows contributions to publicly funded universities and research bodies doing research in science, technology, engineering and medicine aimed at promoting the SDGs. In 2019 a High Level Committee on CSR recommended aligning Schedule VII more closely with the SDGs, but that was a recommendation, not a change in the law.

Even so, the two overlap heavily:

A simple habit helps: tag every project twice. Its Schedule VII item answers “is this allowed?” Its one to three SDG targets answer “what are we trying to change?” The first keeps you within the law; the second keeps you honest about results.

Choosing SDG targets and indicators

1. Start from need and the law. Find out what the community needs, through a needs assessment, and check which Schedule VII item the work falls under.
2. Choose targets, not goals. Pick one to three targets per project, such as 6.1, instead of “SDG 6”.
3. Go where the gaps are. Use the SDG India Index, district data and the lists of aspirational districts and blocks.
4. Borrow national indicators. Where you can, measure what the National Indicator Framework or the district already measures, so your figures can be compared.
5. Set a baseline and a realistic contribution. Say what you expect to change, for whom and by when.
6. Review every year, and report what didn’t work as well as what did.

Our guide to choosing indicators covers measurement in more depth.

SDG-washing, and how to avoid it

SDG-washing means making claims about the SDGs that your evidence can’t support, or showing off the goals you help while staying quiet about the ones your business harms. The key distinction is between contribution and attribution. If the share of children reading at grade level in a district rises, your reading programme probably helped, but so did teachers, parents, the state’s programmes and other NGOs. You can usually claim a contribution, rarely the whole result.

A good claim fits one sentence: we contributed to target 6.1 in 15 villages, where households with safe water all year rose from 40% to 78% over two years, measured by district laboratory tests, working with the gram panchayats and the state’s water programme. If you can’t fill in each part, you aren’t ready to make the claim.

Where the SDGs appear in company reporting

Listed companies also report on social and environmental matters in the BRSR, the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report that the top 1,000 listed companies must file. It doesn’t ask companies to tag the SDGs, but its questions line up with them. Its voluntary leadership indicators under Principle 8, inclusive growth, ask about CSR projects in aspirational districts and about the beneficiaries of each CSR project, including the share from vulnerable and marginalised groups: “leave no one behind” in reporting form. Our guide to ESG explains how this fits with investors’ interest in sustainability.

The Academy’s SDGs and India course goes deeper, goal by goal, with Indian examples.