CIVICUS discusses corporate accountability efforts with Sibora Dhima, Engagement Manager at the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA).

The WBA is a multi-stakeholder alliance that uses benchmarks to measure corporate performance on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Its most recent assessment, the 2024 Urban Benchmark, ranks the sustainability performance of the 300 most influential companies that shape urban environments worldwide across sectors such as construction, energy, real estate, transport and waste and water management. This finds that most companies are not doing enough to tackle key issues such as air and noise pollution, affordability and disaster preparedness, and are failing to meet the standards for creating sustainable and inclusive urban environments.

What’s the WBA Urban Benchmark?

The WBA Urban Benchmark assesses and ranks the sustainability performance of 300 of the world’s most influential companies that shape urban environments across key sectors. Grounded in the SDGs, it recognises that urban challenges like air pollution, resource depletion and social inclusion must be addressed alongside opportunities for innovation, such as clean energy and sustainable public transport. With cities now home to 55 per cent of the global population and generating over 80 per cent of GDP, the benchmark measures how effectively the private sector meets the needs of rapidly growing urban populations while respecting planetary boundaries.

Companies are evaluated across multiple dimensions: climate, governance, health, resilience and social inclusion. The findings and methodology are publicly available to support stakeholders including governments, civil society organisations and investors. Through collective impact coalitions and communities of practice, the benchmark promotes multi-stakeholder action and knowledge sharing aimed at strengthening corporate accountability. It provides insights into performance, highlights areas for improvement and identifies urgent actions needed to advance the SDGs and drive systemic change in urban sustainability.

What are this year’s main findings?

This year’s evaluation reveals that many influential urban companies are failing to create safe, affordable and inclusive urban environments. Public health emerges as a key area of neglect, with insufficient action to address air and noise pollution from traffic, construction and waste management.

Of the 300 companies assessed, only nine reported consistent reductions in key air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides, while just five showed reduced particulate matter. In the transport and construction sectors, merely 13 per cent of companies reported efforts to reduce noise and vibration levels, demonstrating limited commitment to protecting residents’ health. Affordability represents another critical concern, with 75 per cent of companies failing to incorporate it into their sustainability strategies, despite their significant influence on housing, transport and utility costs.

Environmental sustainability shows similar shortcomings. Less than half of the companies disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, and only six per cent have adopted science-based reduction targets. Moreover, 69 per cent lack emergency response or recovery strategies, even though they provide essential urban services. Companies in low and middle-income countries, which serve communities that are particularly vulnerable, also score poorly, with over half failing to conduct natural disaster risk assessments, compromising their contribution to urban resilience.

Stakeholder engagement remains inadequate: more than half of companies report no interaction with affected stakeholders, fewer than 40 per cent recognise local communities as key stakeholders and only five per cent identify tenants or residents as stakeholders. Notably, none acknowledge the over one billion people living in informal settlements, highlighting a significant disconnect between urban companies and the communities they serve and affect.

Have you found significant differences among the companies assessed?

The results reveal substantial performance gaps, with even the highest-scoring company reaching only 47.8 per cent, while more than half of companies scored below 10 per cent of the total score.

Companies tended to perform better when it came to establishing internal policies and processes, where they averaged 12 per cent, and worse when it came to achieving tangible impacts in reducing negative effects or enhancing positive outcomes, where they averaged only four per cent. While internal reforms mark an important starting point, companies must also demonstrate tangible, measurable results and evaluate the actual outcomes of their initiatives.

Transparency is essential for achieving meaningful improvements. Publicly traded companies typically outperform their privately owned and state-owned counterparts, likely due to more stringent reporting requirements. Companies in low and middle-income regions, particularly the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, underperform in comparison to other regions, which could be due to resource constraints and limited access to global sustainability frameworks. Addressing these disparities, particularly considering urgent sustainability needs and rapid urbanisation in these regions, requires more inclusive tools and enhanced knowledge-sharing mechanisms.

To enhance performance, companies should prioritise investments in cleaner technologies, reduce air and noise pollution, emphasise affordability and establish science-based emissions targets. Local governments can support these efforts by incorporating sustainability and decarbonisation requirements into procurement, licensing and building permits.

There are also positive practices that demonstrate advances in addressing environmental, social and governance challenges. Taiwan Power and Delhi Land and Finance have shown measurable progress in enhancing disaster preparedness, demonstrating efforts towards resilience. National Grid has collaborated with local governments and regulators to help create solutions for shared challenges, while United Utilities has addressed water poverty through affordability measures like social tariffs and data monitoring of vulnerable customers. Enel has invested in workforce resilience through upskilling and redeployment and has improved energy adequacy with grid innovations for the integration of renewables. These efforts illustrate positive steps towards sustainable and inclusive private sector practices that benefit society and the environment.

What should be done to improve private sector accountability?

Companies must move beyond surface-level commitments and towards measurable, impactful outcomes. Transparency is essential, requiring consistent disclosure of sustainability data, including detailed city-level figures. Businesses should conduct assessments to identify key sustainability risks and opportunities, develop comprehensive strategies and assign implementation responsibilities to their highest governing bodies. Meaningful engagement with local communities and affected stakeholders must become fundamental to corporate sustainability strategies.

Governments and regulators need to enforce clear, locally relevant reporting standards and integrate sustainability and affordability requirements into public procurement, licensing and permit issuing processes. Platforms that facilitate collaboration between public and private sectors can strengthen accountability frameworks.

Civil society organisations, communities and the media serve crucial roles in monitoring corporate and governmental actions, advocating for equitable solutions and amplifying urban residents’ voices. All stakeholders must prioritise inclusion, affordability and sustainability to align their efforts with the SDGs and address pressing urban challenges.