KfW and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development was adopted by the Member States of the United Nations in September 2015. At the core of Agenda 2030 are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which address all three dimensions of sustainability for the first time: social, environmental and economic. The goals are universal and therefore apply equally to developing, emerging and industrialised countries. With Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the international community expresses its conviction that global challenges can only be solved by working together and at the same time provides a framework for a sustainable development process.

As one of the world's leading national promotional banks, KfW Group and its various business areas work on behalf the German Federal Government. Its work is aligned with the German Sustainable Development Strategy and thus with the core messages of 2030 Agenda. KfW Group therefore makes a substantial contribution to achieving the SDGs in Germany, Europe and around the world. To this end, it provides funding in key priority areas: climate and environmental protection (SDG 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15 and others), innovation (SDG 9 and others), small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups (SDG 8 and others), infrastructure investments by cities, communities and municipal enterprises (SDG 9, 11 and others), student and educational loans (SDG 4, 10 and others), export and project finance (SDG 7, 8, 9 and others) and the promotion of developing and emerging-market countries (SDG 1, 2, 3, 5, 16, 17 and others). SDG mapping aims to transparently show this positive contribution made by KfW and its customers and partners.

KfW's SDG mapping is based on the overarching development claim of Agenda 2030, KfW's sustainability model and the German Sustainability Strategy 2016 (framework for implementing Agenda 2030) and 2018 (supplement). The preamble to Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development calls for a focus on the weakest and most vulnerable and to leave no one behind in sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda is based on the five dimensions which serve as guiding principles for action: humans, the planet, prosperity, peace and partnership, which at the same time highlight the existing interdependencies between the goals. With the German Sustainable Development Strategy 2016, the German government defines how it intends to achieve the 17 SDGs in Germany, support them worldwide and pursue them with international organisations. KfW's sustainability mission statement defines the reference framework for its sustainable activities as a promotional bank. In keeping with this mission statement, we deal responsibly with correlations between SDGs and scope for interpretation within the 169 SDG sub-goals. We are spearheading the transformation to a sustainable economic and financial system as part of our sector-specific mandates.

The focus of SDG mapping is on the intended positive SDG contributions from KfW’s newly committed financing activities. As in the multidimensional SDG target system, KfW's financing generally contributes to several SDGs at the same time. The methodology chosen by KfW to assign its activities to the SDGs takes this into account without claiming to be exhaustive. Since the impacts achieved in each case generally do not become evident until several years after the project commitment, they cannot be included in the annual SDG mapping of new commitments. In fact, however, the individual KfW projects are only assigned to those SDGs where a direct contribution is expected.