Agenda 2030 Compass: A strategic decision-support tool grounded in the SDGs

The Agenda 2030 Compass is a strategic decision-support tool developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Jernkontoret, and Swedish steel producers to assess the potential societal value of strategic decisions based on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

• The Agenda 2030 Compass is a proof-of-concept process designed to help steel producers and other actors assess the potential societal value of new products or production processes. Unlike traditional SDG efforts that measure past progress on a few goals, the Compass uses a future-oriented, cross-impact methodology to assess systemic effects across all 17 SDGs, comparing planned actions against baselines or alternative options.
• The tool was piloted through six workshops involving approximately 100 participants from academia, government, and the steel and mining industries. These pilots included comparing the use of metallurgic slags for water purification versus asphalt reinforcement, evaluating high-quality steel for future 'green' heavy-duty vehicles against current vehicles and additive manufacturing, and assessing policy alternatives like a sharing economy.
• The methodology employs a three-stage format: identifying affected SDGs, assessing the impact on a scale from +3 to -3, and calculating dynamic effects across all goals based on expert assessments of SDG interactions. This provides a multi-criterion analysis that accounts for the complexity of societal and natural interactions.
• While developed with the Swedish steel industry—which the project found has significant potential to contribute to the 2030 Agenda globally and within Sweden—the methodology is applicable to any government or industrial sector. A subsequent project starting in 2019 aims to develop a fully functional model for use by any actor.

APA

Hallding, K., & Blixt, E. (2020). Agenda 2030 Compass: A strategic decision-support tool grounded in the SDGs. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sei-a2030-compass-decision-support.pdf

Chicago

Hallding, Karl, and Eva Blixt. Agenda 2030 Compass: A strategic decision-support tool grounded in the SDGs. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2020. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sei-a2030-compass-decision-support.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hallding |first1=Karl |last2=Blixt |first2=Eva |title=Agenda 2030 Compass: A strategic decision-support tool grounded in the SDGs |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=March 2020 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sei-a2030-compass-decision-support.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hallding2020agenda, author = {Hallding, Karl and Blixt, Eva}, title = {{Agenda 2030 Compass: A strategic decision-support tool grounded in the SDGs}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2020}, month = mar, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sei-a2030-compass-decision-support.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }