Are Green Bond SDG Links Intentional or Just Compliance?

Green bonds are often positioned as purpose-built tools to advance the UN SDGs. Issuers frequently cite alignment with a wide range of goals in their frameworks. But how much of this is meaningful alignment or just marketing? The SDGs developed and published by the UN, were never built with the quantitative focus that financial market participants typically espouse in their decision making. These products of global policy and development at best offer a highly valuable qualitative framework for an insight into what sustainable impact could look like, one that businesses and investors then co-opted. Our analysis shows that, when it comes to the green bond market, this appropriation of SDGs may have more to do with ease of reporting than real intent. 

We analyzed 222 frameworks across 126 issuers to explore how Use of Proceeds (UoP) categories map to the SDGs. What we found was a landscape of broad claims, scattered focus, and selective depth, revealing more about strategic optics than systemic integration. 

SDG alignment in green bond frameworks appear more symbolic than strategic. While many Use of Proceeds categories claim links to over 10 SDGs, the actual concentration of impact was limited to just a few recurring goals - mostly urban and infrastructure-focused. Environmental themes dominate, while social, institutional, and partnership-related goals are barely referenced. This divergence raises key questions about whether SDG integration is a design priority or a compliance exercise. 

The SDG Spread: More Isn’t Always Better 

In theory, mapping a Use of Proceeds category to multiple SDGs signals holistic thinking. In practice, however, it often signals conceptual overreach. Take ‘Access to Essential Services’: this single category is linked to 13 different SDGs across issuer frameworks. Circular Economy and Climate Change Adaptation also stretch across 12 and 11 SDGs respectively. While impressive on paper, this breadth tends to dilute clarity and reduce accountability. Much of this breadth of available mapping is also based on the ICMA’s mapping of SDGs to their UoP categories. Some of these categories are wide by nature and hence allow for this spread of SDG relevance. 

When nearly every category can be said to advance nearly every SDG, the risk is clear: SDG mapping becomes a check-the-box exercise rather than a directional tool. And without directional clarity, true impact becomes harder to measure and achieve, let alone trust. 

Fig 1: UoP Categories map to many SDGs

Impact Priorities: What Green Bonds Actually Target 

When we flip the lens and ask which SDGs are referenced most often, the picture tightens dramatically. When measuring against all 14 Use of Proceeds categories mentioned across the 222 frameworks, we see some clear signals in the data. SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), and SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) dominate. This tracks closely with the top ICMA categories in terms of capital flow: Green Buildings, Renewable Energy, and Energy Efficiency – topics we covered in our last 2 posts (Green Bonds in Practice: How European Capital is Allocated & Tracking Promises: How Pre-Issuance Intent Translates To Real-World Allocation). 

SDG 13 (Climate Action) despite its symbolic weight in global discourse, ranks mid-pack. And social and governance-oriented goals, including SDG 16 (Institutions and Justice) and SDG 17 (Partnerships), are barely visible with only 2 UoP categories being mapped to each of them across the dataset although this could be a selection bias when it comes to the dataset of frameworks analyzed.

Fig 2: What Counts As Impact?

Focus vs. Scatter: What the Dot Chart Reveals 

The dot chart we built, however, tells a subtler story. Here, we looked at the top 10 UoP categories mentioned and assessed the total SDG mapping frequency across frameworks, then calculated the relative share of each SDG per ICMA Use of Proceeds category. Essentially the graphs shows a measure of how frequently an SDG is linked to a category as a % of total mentions in a framework.  While there’s wide distribution of SDG references across ICMA categories, most of those links are weakly held and only a handful of SDG-category pairs show consistent, high-frequency alignment across frameworks. This scattershot mapping suggests that SDGs are often cited in frameworks to comply with expectations, not because they are core to the project pipeline or investment thesis. In fact, 7 different SDGs were linked to a category less than 20% of the time.  

Fig 3: SDGs – Focused or Compliance?

That’s not to say all mappings are vague. Where SDG alignment is strong, it’s often specific and repeatable. We found >35% alignment rates between certain UoP categories and their logically associated SDGs: 

• SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation ↔ Sustainable Water & Wastewater Management 

• SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy ↔ Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency 

• SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure ↔ Energy Efficiency 

• SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities ↔ Affordable Housing & Green Buildings 

• SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production ↔ Circular Economy & Pollution Control 

• SDG 15 – Life on Land ↔ Environmental Management of Living Resources 

This essentially makes it evident that SDG mentions are common, but their integration is often shallow. A small group of SDGs account for the majority of mappings, and even those are not always tightly linked to measurable outcomes. Less than 5% of frameworks analyzed referenced SDG Targets and Indicators, which suggests a stark lack of in-depth mapping or understanding of the nuance of impact measurement in project deployment. 

What This Means for Green Finance 

The SDG framework was built to guide systemic change and did perhaps take impact finance reporting’s quantitative needs into account when it was first launched. Based on current green bond frameworks, however, SDG references seem to be more thematic than structural. Issuers favor familiar environmental narratives that match investor expectations, while socially complex or governance-oriented goals get minimal attention.

As market volatility rises and investor confidence softens, green bonds may become even more risk-averse doubling down on ‘safe’ environmental goals at the expense of broader systemic impact. That makes it more important than ever to ask: are we aligning with the SDGs because they’re measurable, or because they’re easy? 

At SFI, our Impact Verification Service is designed to move beyond headline SDG claims and interrogate whether reported outcomes hold up against independent benchmarks. We match issuer-reported impact metrics to open-source reference datasets, and best-practice ESG disclosure tools. 

Using our database, you can highlight drift or consistency in UoP category allocation, SDG references, and quantitative impact metrics across issuance lifecycles or track how SDG priorities vary between issuers in different sectors and geographies.