The Gap Frame is a normative framework that translates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into nationally relevant issues and indicators for business. It provides a national assessment showing where a country is today as compared to where it should be in the future.
The Gap Frame is developed by translating the 17 SDGs into 24 issues relevant to all nations and business, as summarized in the Figure 1 and outlined in the steps below.
Figure 1: Translation of the SDGs into national relevance for business
Step 1: The Gap Frame groups the 17 SDGs into four sustainability dimensions: environment (we call it planet), society, economy and governance.
Step 2: The global goals are adapted and completed, resulting in 24 relevant issues for every single country in the world. Three issues are added to the governance dimension which is underrepresented in the SDGs. Those include: business integrity, public finance, and transparency. The economy, society and environment dimensions are complemented with the resource use, social integration, and clean air issues, respectively. Finally, the global Goal 12 (sustainable consumption and production) is split into two separate issues given the relevance and impact of each, particularly for business.
Step 3: 68 publicly available indicators substantiate the 24 Gap Frame issues, averaging about 2.8 indicators per issue. The most recently observable values for individual indicators are recorded for 196 countries.