The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent the politically negotiated global consensus on our Grand Challenges until 2030. Focused on reducing the gap between the global North and South, the SDGs are proven difficult to apply to every single nation. The Gap Frame is a normative framework that translates the SGDs into relevant measures for each nation and as a basis for a strategic business tool, highlighting the gap of where we are today versus where we need to be so that all of us can live well on one planet.

The Gap Frame identifies a “safe space for all of us” and serves as a basis for multi-stakeholders to address these Grand Challenges, by sector, across industries, for an enterprise or as a responsible management educator, building on the “outside-in” perspective of true business sustainability. Check-out this tool which reflects a multi-sector research effort spanning across 155 countries and 24 Grand Challenges, including national priorities. The true viability of the Gap Frame comes with an expansion of users, who are invited to join expert panels that will upgrade this current version in 2018 and thereafter.

The Gap Frame translates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into four sustainability dimensions: planet, society, economy, governance, enclosing 24 issues and 68 underlying indicators. The 24 Grand Challenges are assessed for 190 countries, 22 regions and the world.