Moving the 2030 agenda forward: SDG
implementation in Colombia
Maria A. Pineda-Escobar
Maria A. Pineda-Escobar is
based at the Department of
International Business,
Institucion Universitaria
Politecnico Grancolombiano,
Bogota, Colombia.
Received 6 November 2017
Revised 13 July 2018
1 August 2018
15 August 2018
Accepted 22 August 2018
PAGE 176 j CORPORATE GOVERNANCE j VOL. 19 NO. 1 2019, pp. 176-188, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to the debate regarding the understanding of the multiple
manifestations and alternatives for the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs) across
national borders. For this purpose, the Colombian context is taken as a case study.
Design/methodology/approach – The present study performs an exploration of SDGs implementation
in Colombia, cutting across the macro and meso levels and the perspectives of governance-making and
governance-taking. To answer the research questions, this study applies a two-stage qualitative research
design with summative content analysis.
Findings – The study finds that the companies in Colombia are showing an interest in incorporating the
SDGs into their corporate sustainability reporting. Although companies show a general interest in
adopting the SDGs as part of their sustainability strategies, the findings demonstrate that very few would
go deeply into the analysis of the SDG targets. The Colombian case might be a good example of how
local governments are taking actions for the implementation of SDGs in their national action plans,
policies and strategies.
Research limitations/implications – As is frequent with qualitative research, and particularly with
content analysis, the generalizability of the findings obtained may only be applicable to those
organizations included in the sample. The analysis at the meso level is limited to the private sector, and
the findings are not applicable to other organizational actors, such as civil society organizations or
academia. Future research can broaden the spectrum of analysis, both at a national and cross-national
level.
Practical implications – The paper is of use for actors from the public, private and civil society sectors in
Colombia, as well as for international actors with an interest in the ways in which the global sustainable
development agenda can be translated into local action.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to the understanding of the different ways in which the
sustainable development agenda is moving from the global level to the local implementation.
Keywords Latin America, Implementation, Content analysis, Sustainable development goals,
2030 Agenda, SDG
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Building on the millennium development goals (MDGs), the world leaders at the United
Nations (UN) adopted, in September 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
(UN, 2015). The Agenda presents 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) that are
increasingly becoming known as global goals (Bebbington and Unerman, 2018) and apply
to all countries of the world. These goals represent an ambitious world plan for action by
2030 to respond to major global challenges to fight poverty, social exclusion and
environmental degradation, and reach sustainable development for all. In spite of some
criticism, acceptance of the Agenda was enormously positive (Spangenberg, 2017), and
global expectations around the SDGs are high. The 2030 Agenda has been commended
for its global reach (Pogge and Sengupta, 2015), and has been regarded as a guiding light
for a challenging transition toward sustainable development (Le Blanc, 2015); as a guiding
DOI 10.1108/CG-11-2017-0268
vision for shared action at all levels of society including government, the private sector and
civil society (Hajer et al., 2015); or as a road toward a new and transformational era of
human development (Caprani, 2016).
With the adoption of the Global Agenda, interest on SDG research has appeared within
academia, and authors have started to approach the topic from various disciplines
(Bebbington and Unerman, 2018). Recent contributions to the literature have come from
such distinct fields as accounting (Schaltegger et al., 2017), education (Annan-Diab and
Molinari, 2017; Storey et al., 2017; Moon et al., 2018), management and business (Yiu and
Saner, 2017; Pedersen, 2018), official development assistance (Pineda-Escobar
and Garzon Cuervo, 2016), finance (Schwerhoff and Sy, 2017), life-cycle analysis (Wulf
et al., 2018), urban development (Barnett and Parnell, 2016) and law (Kim, 2016).
The 2030 Agenda calls upon actors at all levels for their individual and collaborative involvement
with the implementation of the SDGs. Similarly, the UN expects national governments to be
those primarily responsible for SDG adoption and to take ownership for the local implementation
of the goals at the national level, following-up on their progress. However, as pointed out by the
International Council for Science – ICSU (2017) – the 17 goals provide an indication of the issues
that are deemed important, but the Agenda falls short to specify how they might be placed into
action to achieve the expected impact, or how such action might be fostered and monitored.
Some of the goals, in particular number 17, refer to financial, technological, capacity building,
trading and systemic issues that are needed for implementation. Still, the text is lenient and does
not provide sufficient grounds for operationalizing and monitoring the Agenda (Gupta and
Vegelin, 2016). So, the question pertaining to how to move from global rhetoric to local
implementation remains largely unanswered.
The ways in which businesses may relate with and implement the SDGs is also a question
requiring further research. A first approximation to the subject is found in the SDG
Compass, which was jointly developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development (WBCSD), the UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in
2015, as an orientation tool to guide companies in aligning their operations with the Global
Goals (GRI, UN Global Compact and WBCSD, 2015).
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current debate regarding the multiple
manifestations and usages of the SDGs across national borders. Taking the Colombian
context as a case study, the task is approached with a qualitative analysis of the way in
which the SDGs are being adopted and implemented by both public and private actors in
the country. Dissecting the analysis at the macro and meso levels, and the perspectives of
governance making versus governance taking, this research answers four research
questions centered on the Colombian Government and private sector:
RQ1. How are Colombian authorities selecting issues to include and exclude for the local
implementation of the SDGs?
RQ2. How are SDGs translated into Colombian national action plans, policies, and
strategies?
RQ3. How will Colombian companies make local adaptations in favor of the SDGs?
RQ4. How will sustainability-reporting tools exemplify the use of SDGs by Colombian
companies?
The paper is organized into five sections. After the introduction, Section 2 describes the way
in which the Colombian Government is approaching the implementation of the SDGs at the
national level, taking into consideration, too, the role that the country played in the adoption
of the sustainable development agenda at a global level. Section 3 details the methodology
used for this qualitative research, while Section 4 presents the results obtained with
summative content analysis. Finally, Section 5 moves on to the discussion of the findings
and presents the conclusion indicating lines for future research.

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 2. Sustainable development goals in Colombia
2.1 The role of Colombia in the adoption of the sustainable development goals at a
global level
The proposal to agree on a suite of SDGs was raised by the governments of Colombia and
Guatemala in Rio de Janeiro at the outset of the UN Conference on Sustainable
Development on June 2012, 20 years after the Earth Summit in 1992 (Loewe and Rippin,
2015; PNUD, 2015). The proposal argued that the SDGs could “provide a logical sequence
and structure” to the process that had been initiated in 1992, and could also become a
“road map for sustainable development” (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la
República de Colombia, 2011). Based on the previous experience from the MDGs,
Colombia and Guatemala argued that, “when there are objectives to guide the international
community’s efforts toward a collective goal, it becomes easier for governments and
institutions to work together to reach them” (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la
República de Colombia, 2011).
The need for the establishment of indicators for measuring the advance – and any
bottlenecks – of the SDGs was also one of the points raised by both countries in their
proposal. Having concrete indicators, aligned with the priorities and context of each
country, could help to avoid political commitments favoring world sustainable development
remaining as mere generalities (Pinter, 2013).
Given this pivotal role, Colombia had a privileged position in the establishment of the
world’s political agenda for sustainability after 2015. The Foreign Minister of Colombia, Ms
Maria Angela Holguin, was invited to be one of the 27 members of the High Level Panel of
eminent persons, created by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Mon to advise on the post-
2015 global development framework (PNUD, 2015).
After the global adoption of the SDGs in September 2015, Colombia has found itself within
the group of countries that have voluntarily presented the national reviews on progress on
the local implementation of the 2030 Agenda. In 2016, Colombia was one of the 22
countries that presented the report to the meeting of the high-level political forum under the
auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (Division for Sustainable
Development Department of Economic and Social Affairs United Nations, 2016). The
country is also on track to present a second voluntary report in 2018.

2.2 Moving forward to local action: adopting the sustainable development goals in
Colombia
Colombia was the first country in the world that made a decision to align its national
development plan (NDP) with the SDGs (Gaviria Muñoz, 2017). Already on June 9, 2015,
the country passed Law 1735 for the adoption of the NDP 2014-2018, entitled Todos por un
nuevo paı´s (everyone for a new country). Article 1 states that the objective of the plan is to
“build a peaceful Colombia, equitable and educated, in harmony with [. . .] the long-term
planning vision projected in the sustainable development goals” (Congreso de la República
de Colombia, 2015).
As shown in Figure 1, currently a total of 146 out of the 169 SDG targets (equivalent to 86 per
cent) are part of the Colombian NDP or another one of its major active political agendas.
Indeed, 68 targets are aligned with the peace agreement signed with the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC). 86 targets are related to the green growth initiative, and 87 are
part of the country priorities for accession to OECD membership (Castro Pacho n, 2017).
In February 2015, also much before global adoption of the SDGs, Decree N˚280
established, by presidential mandate, the High-Level Inter-Agency Commission for the
Preparation and Effective Implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda
(República de Colombia, 2015). The Commission is intended to work on the SDGs through

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 Figure 1 Alignment of SDGs with major National Agendas in Colombia

public policies, plans, programs and actions with prospective planning and with the
respective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
The Commission is integrated by:
䊏 three Ministries: Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Environmental and Sustainable
Development;
䊏 the Presidential Administrative Department, with the participation of the advisory
minister for the government and the private sector;
䊏 the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE);
䊏 the National Planning Department (DNP); and
䊏 the Department for Social Prosperity.

It is expected that each organ will be represented by the minister or director himself, or by
their direct representatives only, to guarantee decision making at the highest level. The
Presidential Agency for International Cooperation and representatives from the private
sector may participate as guests of the Commission.
The Commission has conceived a framework mechanism (Figure 2) to articulate SDG
implementation between the government and other actors such as civil society, academia,
the private sector and international organizations.
Various actors, such as the World Bank Group, have acknowledged the efforts made by
Colombia to translate the SDGs into its national action plans, policies and strategies. This was
heralded as setting an example for the world at an ancillary event of the annual meetings of the
World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund, held on October 12, 2017, which focused
on “Localizing the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.” Introducing a panel
of experts to discuss about SDG implementation in Colombia, Mahmoud Mohieldin, Senior
Vice President of the World Bank affirmed having seen in Colombia “the local, regional,
national policy makers all working together to achieve something ambitious and with very
good coordination between the different elements of government and society”.
In terms of monitoring and evaluation of SDG implementation, Colombia started by
developing a set of national indicators based on the SDG targets. This process was
supported in information from 15 workshops done with 60 entities at the national level. As a
result, 230 indicators were identified. The government has made an assessment of the

VOL. 19 NO. 1 2019 j CORPORATE GOVERNANCE j PAGE 179

 Figure 2 Mechanism for multistakeholder coordination for effective SDG implementation in
Colombia

quality and availability of information to measure these indicators. According to this

evaluation, there is information available for 54 per cent of the indicators, information is
partial or in need of improvement for 30 per cent and data or methodologies are lacking for
the remaining 16 per cent (Castro Pacho n, 2017; Gaviria Muñoz, 2017).
Thus, one of the main challenges for the country is to be able to fill information gaps and,
therefore, allow for sound monitoring and evaluation of SDG implementation. The
Colombian reality is case in point for the international scene. Various works, such as that by
Hák et al. (2016), have acknowledged the need for the establishment of relevant indicators
to operationalize the SDG targets and effectively evaluate their impact. In this respect, it is
important to consider that this monitoring and evaluation work may pose a more demanding
task for lower- and middle-income countries (Thomas et al., 2016), like Colombia.

3. Methodology
Following the proposal by Rasche et al. (2017), the present study explores SDG
implementation in Colombia, cutting across the macro and meso levels, and the
perspectives of governance making and governance taking. At the organizational level, the
analysis is focused around private sector actors only. The intercept between these two
levels and two perspectives allows for the formulation of the four research questions that
guide this study, as presented in Table I.

Table I Levels and perspectives of analysis

Perspective Governance making (production
level of SDGs) Governance taking (adoption of SDGs)

Societal level (Macro) Q1. How are Colombian authorities Q2. How are SDGs translated into
selecting issues to include and exclude Colombian national action plans,
for the local implementation of the policies, and strategies?
SDGs?
Organisational level Q3. How will Colombian companies Q4. How will sustainability-reporting
(Meso) make local adaptations in favor of the tools exemplify the use of SDGs by
SDGs? Colombian companies?
Source: Based on Rasche et al. (2017)

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To answer the research questions, this study applies a qualitative research design
conceived in two complementary stages.
The first research stage consisted of a literature review based on secondary sources of
information to build an understanding about the way in which the Colombian government is
approaching the implementation of the SDGs at both national and sub-national levels. To do
so, information was gathered from official documents issued by the local authorities, as well
as from reports by multilateral organizations including UN agencies. The results of this
stage are presented in the second section of this paper.
The second research stage implemented a summative content analysis to investigate how
sustainability-reporting tools, such sustainability reports and integrated reports, exemplify
the use of SDGs by Colombian companies. Content analysis is defined as a method used to
systematically collect and analyze messages in any type of communication and to develop
objective inferences about a subject of interest contained in those communications
(Kondracki et al., 2002). One key advantage of content analysis as a research technique is
its analytical flexibility. Lying at the intercept of qualitative and quantitative methods, content
analysis may first capture the manifest content of the text in various text statistics, such as
word frequency counts; and then move to a deeper qualitative interpretation of the latent
content and innate meaning expressed in the text (Duriau et al., 2007).
This combination of qualitative and quantitative insights is particularly present in
summative content analysis. This research method involves the identification and
quantification of certain keywords or content, followed by the interpretation of the latent
and underlying meanings of the words in context (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Thus,
quantification via word counts is part of the analysis, but the process does not stop there
and is complemented by latent content analysis, providing qualitative interpretations of
the meanings of texts. The academic literature provides valid examples of how
summative content analysis has been used to interpret meaning of texts in organizational
and management studies (Alok et al., 2014), and specifically in sustainability-related
themes such as environmental education (Hafezi et al., 2013), supply chain sustainability
(Wiese et al., 2012), urban sustainability (Landorf, 2009; Säynäjoki et al., 2014) or the
impact of the financial crisis on corporate responsibility (Arevalo and Aravind, 2010).
More recently, Ross et al. (2015) have applied summative content analysis to study
sustainability reports from fourteen selected USA agri-food firms.
In this research, summative content analysis is used in the study of the sustainability and/or
integrated reports of nineteen Colombian companies for the year 2016. Content analysis of
sustainability reporting can be particularly useful at this early stage of research, when the main
purpose is starting an initial recognition of the problem at hand, at a national level. Similar
country studies can be found in the literature, such as the content analysis of social and
environmental reports of Nigerian oil companies (Odera et al., 2016), or the analysis of the
sustainability reports of ten large-scale mining companies in Ghana (Arthur et al., 2017). 2016
was selected as reference year taking into account that the SDGs were globally adopted in
September 2015, so the 2016 reports would give account of the first year after global adoption.
Data analysis started by determining the frequency of occurrence of seven keywords that
can indicate the inclusion of SDGs in the sustainability strategy of the companies. This is
done with computer-assisted searches to facilitate word counts and permits establishing
the extent to which the SDGs are seen as a planning tool at the organizational level. Word
frequency counts were followed by a manual scanning process of every report to conduct a
qualitative interpretation of the contextual use of each keyword, providing a greater
understanding of implicit or latent meanings in the use of the words and phrases. The
keywords used are summarized in Table II. All the reports that were analyzed were
published in Spanish; hence, keywords were selected in that language. To inform the
readers, Table II provides the equivalent translation in English.

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 Table II Keywords used for summative content analysis
Keyword used in Spanish Equivalent in English

Objetivos de desarrollo sostenible SDGs

ODS SDG
Agenda 2030 2030 Agenda
Agenda de desarrollo sostenible Sustainable development agenda
Objetivos globales OR mundialesa Global goals
17 objetivos 17 goals
169 metas 169 targets
Notes: aBoth forms: objetivos globales and objetivos mundiales are synonyms in Spanish and could
have been used interchangeably by the companies to refer to the global goals. Therefore, both forms
were considered and tested as part of this research
Source: Own construction

3.1 Sample selection

This research used purposeful sampling, a technique extensively applied in qualitative
research to identify and select information-rich cases to inform the phenomenon of interest
(Cresswell and Plano-Clark, 2011; Palinkas et al., 2015). Criterion-i sampling was applied,
using as inclusion criterion that the company is a current member of CECODES, the
Colombian Business Council for Sustainable Development, which is the WBCSD chapter in
the country. Being a member of CECODES implies that the company has made a
commitment to the adoption of sustainability in their business model, and it would be
expected that it is disclosing its sustainability information to the general public in a thorough
fashion, via any form of sustainability reporting.
As informed by CECODES on their website, their membership as of October 2017
totaled 30 entities. After performing a preliminary suitability check, out of this number
eleven companies were excluded from the sample used in this study, on account of the
following reasons: four were foreign multinational corporations that publish a single
sustainability global report for the group as a whole; thus, its inclusion would not
necessarily be an indication of the adoption of the SDGs in the Colombian context. The
most recent reports available for three of them were from the years 2014 or 2015, and
therefore were not useful for analyzing the SDGs. The remaining four do not publish any
type of sustainability report, or at least do not do so in a digital format that is available
for public consultation. Table AI provides an overview of the nineteen companies
included in the sample. For the purposes of this study each company was assigned an
identification number labeled “Id No.”.

3.2 Limitations
As is frequent with qualitative research, and particularly with content analysis, the
generalizability of the findings obtained may only be applicable to the organizations
included in the sample. Given the purposive nature of the sample, the results may not reveal
how the adoption and implementation of the SDGs is evolving in companies with different
characteristics. Thus, further research is necessary to understand if and how companies
that do not necessarily focus on sustainability in their business model are adopting the
SDGs. Moreover, the investigation of trends and possible variations depending on the size
of the companies analyzed could be of interest too.
In addition, given the scope of the research design, the analysis at the meso level is limited
to the private sector, and the findings are not applicable to other organizational actors such
as civil society organizations or academia. Future research may broaden the spectrum of
analysis, both at a national and cross-national level.

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4. Results
The findings obtained with summative content analysis show that 15 out of the 19
reports studied in the sample used one or more of the keywords related to the SDGs.
Companies with Id No. 2, 9, 10 and 16 were the only ones that did not use any of the
keywords in their sustainability reports for the year 2016, which ostensibly indicates
that none of them considered the SDGs as part of their sustainable development
strategy.
As shown in Table III, the keyword most frequently used by the companies to refer to the UN
sustainability agenda is the acronym “SDG,” followed by the entire expression “sustainable
development goals.” The acronym SDG is used, on average, 35 times per report, with the
highest frequency being 148 (Id No. 3), and the lowest frequency being one time (Id No. 4,
6, and 17). The whole wording, “sustainable development goals,” was used, on average, 11
times. The companies presenting the highest and lowest counts were Id No. 7 (45 times)
and Id No. 6 (once).
Furthermore, the results show that only very infrequently would companies refer to the 2030
Agenda. This keyword was only found in seven (36.8 per cent) of the sustainability reports
that were analyzed, and its frequency of use was also minimal, with five of the seven
companies using it only once. Even less common was the use of the keywords that have a
direct relation with the number of objectives (17 goals) and targets (169 targets) present in
the global sustainable agenda. The keyword 17 goals was only found in five of the reports
(Id No. 3, 5, 12, 14 and 15), while the keyword “169 targets” was only used by three out of
the nineteen companies studied in this research.
Only one of the companies (Id No. 19) referred once to the expression global goals, while
none of the reports included the keyword “sustainable development agenda”.
A deeper qualitative analysis of the contextual use of each keyword allows for a
greater understanding of the way in which Colombian companies are interpreting the
SDGs. Regarding RQ3 and RQ4, this contextual analysis centers around two main
elements:

Table III Frequency of use of each keyword in sustainability reporting

Keyword
2030 sustainable Global 17 169
Id no. SDGs SDG Agenda development agenda goals goals targets

1 5 28 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 8 148 1 0 0 1 1
4 3 1 0 0 0 0 0
5 4 52 2 0 0 1 1
6 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
7 45 45 0 0 0 0 0
8 27 18 1 0 0 0 0
9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 6 5 0 0 0 0 0
12 28 77 0 0 0 2 0
13 9 92 1 0 0 0 0
14 2 3 1 0 0 1 0
15 6 18 1 0 0 2 1
16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
17 2 1 0 0 0 0 0
18 3 2 0 0 0 0 0
19 11 32 6 0 1 0 0
Source: Own construction

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 1. the particular section of the report in which the SDGs are mentioned; and
2. the thoroughness of SDG inclusion; both of which are indicators that show if and how
companies in Colombia are adopting the SDGs as a planning tool for their sustainability
strategy.

The main findings are summarized in Table IV.

5. Discussion and conclusion

The analysis of the findings demonstrates that the companies in Colombia are showing
an interest in incorporating SDGs into their corporate sustainability reporting.
Companies are more familiar with the expressions SDGs and SDGs, and are much less
likely to refer to the issue with alternative expressions such as 2030 Agenda or global
goals.
Several companies are going beyond merely mentioning SDGs as a matter of introduction
to their sustainability reports, but are instead identifying specific SDGs with direct relation to
the company’s operations. This appears to be a good practice, as it enables companies to
adapt the global agenda locally, and relate to it in a more direct way that facilitates taking
actions to achieving the goals. All companies but one that have identified specific SDGs
also explain how they consider that such a contribution is taking place. They do so in
various ways, either by marking sections of the report with the corresponding SDG(s)
related to that content, or by having a specific section in the report devoted to the
explanation of the company’s contribution to the SDGs.
Companies that are following the GRI guidelines for the elaboration of the report would
sometimes take the SDGs into consideration in their materiality and topic boundary
analysis. These companies would often also include the SDGs as items in their GRI
content index.
Although companies show a general interest in adopting the SDGs as part of their
sustainability strategies, the findings demonstrate that very few companies (i.e. only two of
the nineteen in the sample) would go deeply into the analysis of the SDG targets. This lack
of reflection around the 169 targets is evidence of an enervated system for monitoring and

Table IV Ways in which Colombian companies are using the SDGs as shown in sustainability reports
Id no.
Report section making
reference to the SDGs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Opening. Letter by CEO, president, general

manager or similar       
Report description: About the report. Contents
and structure          
Materiality and topic boundary analysis takes
SDGs into account       
Identification of specific SDGs with direct
relation to the company’s operation          
Presentation along the document of specific
SDG contribution         
SDGs are included in GRI content index      
Contribution to specific SDG targets (out of the
169) is identified  
SDG Compass used as a guiding tool  
Incorporation of SDGs identified as a challenge
for 2017   
Source: Own construction

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evaluation of progress made by companies toward the achievement of SDGs. This
challenge has also been identified by the government as a major task needing to be
addressed at the national level.
It was also possible to identify some companies that are just starting to get involved with the
SDGs. This was either made explicit in the reports directly by the companies themselves,
affirming a future commitment for greater analysis of the topic in 2017, or it was a
recommendation from the firm’s external auditors that examined the reports, and who
considered that a stronger alignment with the SDGs was both appropriate and necessary.
As pointed out earlier, this study used a purposive sample that included big companies
presumed to be actively engaged with sustainability, given their membership in the
Colombian WBCSD. Thus, the results may not reveal how the adoption and implementation
of the SDGs is evolving in other types of companies. Further research may inquire into
whether (and how) companies that do not necessarily have a focus on sustainability in their
business model are adopting the SDGs. Furthermore, trends investigation is of interest
given that possible variations may occur depending on the size of the firm or on the industry
of the companies being studied.
In addition, the results obtained in this study reinforce the idea proposed by Thomas et al.
(2016) concerning the need to find suitable indicators to track the progress of SDG
implementation, which are not only relevant for the international community but also
adequate for evaluating the country’s local agenda. How best to effectively respond to this
need is a question of particular interest for researchers working in developing and emerging
economies where data gathering, monitoring and evaluation activities may pose a greater
challenge than in other countries of the world.
The Colombian case might be a good example of how local governments are taking action
to implement SDGs in their national action plans, policies, and strategies. Although the
country seems to be moving in the right direction, it is still unclear how action at the national
level will be translated to the sub-national levels, where rural and distant areas represent the
biggest test. Adequately addressing identified institutional, technical and information gaps
is also important to guarantee that the SDG implementation can be properly monitored and
evaluated in the short-, mid-, and long-term. How sufficient and adequate financing of SDG
implementation is to be guaranteed, is yet another aspect that requires further inquiry.
Future research can be used to guide public policy by broadening the spectrum of analysis,
both at a national and cross-national level. Academic consultation into the multiple ways in
which the global goals are being translated into local action is needed to allow for cross-
national comparisons, fostering the sharing of insights and lessons learned across distinct
countries. The analysis of possible collaborations, tensions and disparities arising in SDG
implementation in the global north and south is also a relevant avenue for future research.

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 Appendix

Table AI Overview of the companies included in the sample

Id no. Company name (short form if applicable) Main sector of operation Report published

1 Grupo Argos S.A Construction Integrated report

2 Banco de Occidente Finance Social value creation report
3 Celsia Energy Integrated report
4 Carbones del Cerrejo n Limited and Cerrejo
n Mining Sustainability report
Zona Norte (Cerrejo n)
5 Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar Health, leisure and Sustainability and annual management
(Colsubsidio) education report
6 Corona Construction Sustainability report
7 Ecopetrol S.A Energy Integrated report
8 Grupo EPM Utilities Integrated report
9 Procafecol S.A. (Juan Valdez) Food and beverages Annual management report
10 n Nacional de Cultivadores de
Federacio Agriculture Annual management report
Palma de Aceite (Fedepalma)
11 ISA Energy Integrated report
12 ISAGEN Energy Integrated report
13 Grupo Nutresa Food and beverages Integrated report
14 Pavco Mexichem Colombia S.A.S (Pavco) Construction UN Global Compact Communication
on Progress
15 Postobo  n S.A. Food and beverages Sustainability report
16 Seguros Bolivar Insurance Sustainability report
17 Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana (Grupo Financial services Annual report
Sura)
18 Team Foods Food and beverages Sustainability report
19 Colombia Telecomunicaciones S.A. ESP Telecommunciations Responsible management report
 nica)
(Telefo
Source: Own construction

Corresponding author
Maria A. Pineda-Escobar can be contacted at: mapineda@poligran.edu.co

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