The Sustainable Development Monitor for the Uruguayan business sector

The Sustainable Development Monitor (MDS), is an instrument co-created by the research team of the Chair of Management and Accounting for Sustainable Development - Deloitte, which operates within the institutional framework of the School of Management and Social Sciences of ORT University Uruguay and DERES- Business Network for Sustainable Development. It was built thanks to the participation of 27 companies from various sectors of activity in our Network that provided financial and non-financial information in a rigorous manner, ensuring absolute confidentiality on the part of DERES.

The objective of the MDS is to periodically measure key indicators on the economic, social and environmental performance of companies and to analyze their evolution over time. It aims to be a valuable tool for companies by providing quantitative data that supports the value of sustainability as a competitive factor.

The monitor is composed of 17 indicators, which are distributed in 3 dimensions (Environmental, Social and Economic and Governance) which in turn are related to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. These indicators were selected as a result of research and study of pre-existing tools in the global market such as the SDG Index, DJSI, , FTSE4Good, , Ethos Indicators, ISE -Index of Corporate Sustainability (Getulio Vargas Foundation) and academic literature. The indicators were also discussed with technical staff from the Office of Planning and Budget (OPP) and the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The MDS is interpreted as a percentage of progress. The difference between 100 and the score obtained by a company is then the distance in percentage that needs to be completed to reach the ideal contribution of the company to Sustainable Development. The average MDS for 2018 is 42.99, with 64.81 and 19.02 being the maximum and minimum values respectively. The degree of progress registered in the three dimensions evaluated is uneven; in Economic and Governance the highest degree of progress is shown, followed by the Social and Environmental dimensions. The companies that develop their activities in the financial sector show the best results on average in the MDS, followed by the industrial sector and the service sector in third place. The indicators that record the best values are linked to ODS 5, ODS 8 and ODS 16.

The MDS is a pioneering tool for Uruguay in terms of comparative and aggregate measurement of management and its impact on the three dimensions mentioned. Our team aims to make it the national reference mechanism by adding more DERES followers in future editions of the MDS.

For more information on the MDS, please visit www.deres.org.uy