The Agenda 2030 Compass

The Agenda 2030 Compass is a decision-support system consisting of a Context Mapper and a Strategy Analyser. It enables organisations to quantify how a planned action affects the 17 SDGs, accounting for context-specific synergies and trade-offs. The tool was developed through a collaboration between the Stockholm Environment Institute, Jernkontoret, and the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, and has been pilot-tested in Swedish case studies involving e-scooters, housing, urban mobility, and regional innovation.

• The Agenda 2030 Compass consists of two primary components: the Context Mapper, which identifies potential positive or negative SDG interactions based on socio-economic and environmental factors, and the Strategy Analyser, a workshop-based process for evaluating the sustainability implications of specific interventions.
• The tool uses a matrix-based approach to calculate indirect effects, where a vector of direct SDG impacts is applied to a context-specific interaction matrix to identify 'acupuncture points'—areas of high potential for synergies or trade-offs.
• The Context Mapper utilizes a 'triangulation' method to build interaction maps, combining empirical analysis of historical global data, expert panel assessments, and crowdsourced intelligence from a global network of nearly 200 experts via the 2030 Compass CoLab.
• The project demonstrated that while global data can provide an initial indicative map, country-level expertise is still required to refine the analysis; however, such maps can be developed in as little as two or three days.
• Four pilot case studies in Sweden validated the tool's application across different sectors: Stilride (e-scooter production), Ascend (smart energy housing for Örebrobostäder), Kalmar municipal administration (mobility strategy), and Ramboll/Skåne Regional Council (regional innovation strategy).
• A critical limitation of the Context Mapper is that it relies on historical empirical data, meaning interaction scores may not reflect evolving conditions or anticipated changes 5–10 years in the future.
• The research concludes that the 2030 Compass is intended as a process for structured collective reflection rather than a quantitative modelling tool, as the complexity of SDGs makes aggregate scoring and dynamic future modelling nearly impossible.

APA

Hallding, K., Suljada, T., Axelsson, K., Swartling, Å. G., Kemp-Benedict, E., Laubacher, R., Dahlin, J.-E., Skånberg, K., Blidh, H., & Davis, M. (2022). The Agenda 2030 Compass. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/agenda-2030-compass-synthesis-report.pdf

Chicago

Hallding, Karl, Timothy Suljada, Katarina Axelsson, Åsa Gerger Swartling, Eric Kemp-Benedict, Robert Laubacher, Jon-Erik Dahlin, et al. The Agenda 2030 Compass. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2022. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/agenda-2030-compass-synthesis-report.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{hallding2022agenda, author = {Hallding, Karl and Suljada, Timothy and Axelsson, Katarina and Swartling, Åsa Gerger and Kemp-Benedict, Eric and Laubacher, Robert and Dahlin, Jon-Erik and Skånberg, Kristian and Blidh, Henrik and Davis, Marion}, title = {{The Agenda 2030 Compass}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/agenda-2030-compass-synthesis-report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }