Contributions to the sustainable development goals in life cycle sustainability assessment: Insights from the Handprint research project

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent consensual, global scale targets, encouraging not only the fight against unsustainable aspects in society (e. g., poverty or hunger) but also positive contributions to sustainable development (e. g., renewable energy use or human well-being). The SDGs are, however, not per se designed as a performance measurement system for businesses and products. Consequently, research is challenged to develop convincing approaches and indicator systems that capture how businesses contribute to the SDGs.