SDG 9.2 Sustainable business

The second part of SDG 9 is about striving for a stronger and more sustainable business community. Small businesses must have better access to high-quality markets and financing. In the Netherlands, the focus is mainly on relations between companies and employees, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies, and the sustainability of production processes and products.

• Compared to other countries, Dutch companies experienced few problems with access to financing in 2024.
• Companies are using less and less energy and materials in their production processes.
• The greenhouse gas intensity of the economy is trending downwards: while GDP is growing, total greenhouse gas emissions are declining. 

Dashboard and indicators

Colour codes and notes to the dashboards in the Monitor of Well-being

The SDG agenda includes indicators that are relevant to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business activity in developed countries such as the Netherlands. Some themes from the SDG agenda are less relevant to the Netherlands, such as the goal of increasing the share of manufacturing in the economy.

Resources and opportunities refers to the options available to businesses to make their production processes, energy consumption and value chains more sustainable. In this context, Dutch companies have access to good resources and sufficient opportunities, and their position continues to improve. The economic importance of the environmental sector is growing. In 2023, the sector accounted for 3.3 percent of GDP and 2.4 percent of total employment. The environmental sector is the part of the Dutch economy that engages in environmental activities. This includes all companies and organisations that provide products or services explicitly designed to protect the environment or manage natural resources. The growth of the environmental sector is driven by the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. Initially, the focus of the sector’s activities was on waste and waste water treatment and energy conservation. Today, the main goals are producing renewable energy, reducing air pollution and curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Sustainability requires investment. In 2024, 16 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceived access to financing as an obstacle or major obstacle to their business operations. That same year, a distinction was made for the first time between companies with and without financing needs. Among SMEs without financing needs, 9 percent experienced obstacles in accessing finance. For SMEs with financing needs, this figure was 51 percent. By contrast, only 21 percent of large enterprises with financing needs experienced obstacles. To compare the Netherlands with other EU countries, an international survey is used in which companies are asked to indicate whether they perceive access to financing as a problem using a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 means ‘not at all’ and 10 means ‘extremely’). In 2024, the average rating given by Dutch companies was 3.5, which means that they experienced relatively few problems in accessing financing. The only country with a better score was Sweden (3.2).

According to KPMG, a large and growing proportion of the 100 largest companies (by turnover) publish a sustainability report. In 2024, 94 of these companies did so. Under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, only large listed companies with more than 500 employees have been required to issue annual sustainability reports since the 2024 financial year. Other large companies will be required to do so from the 2025 financial year onwards. The Netherlands is near the top of the EU ranking for this indicator (third out of 19 countries in 2024).

Use refers to companies’ efforts to make their production processes, energy use and value chains more sustainable. Companies are using ever less energy and materials in their production processes, and the energy intensity of the economy has been declining for at least 30 years. In the mid-1990s, energy intensity was over 180 kilograms of oil equivalents for every 1,000 euros of GDP (in 2015 prices). By 2023, this had dropped to 92 kilograms. Besides the shift towards more sustainable processes, the decrease in energy intensity may have been caused by a change in the production structure (the shift from manufacturing to services), a reduction in the activity of energy-intensive companies, or the offshoring of certain activities.

Domestic material consumption is also falling, both in the medium term and in the most recent year for which data are available. This indicates the amount of materials consumed by economic activities in the Netherlands. With 8 tonnes of materials used per inhabitant in 2023, the Netherlands was among the top three EU-27 countries, alongside Italy and Spain. This could be due in large part to the nature of business activity in the Netherlands, which involves a lot of trade, industry and infrastructure projects. The downward trend is linked to the more efficient use of raw materials and the growing role of services in the Dutch economy. In 2023, the decline in material consumption was amplified by decreases in consumption and energy use.

Outcomes refers to the actual sustainability of production processes and value chains. The greenhouse gas intensity of the economy is decreasing. In 2024, 0.19 kilograms of CO₂ equivalents were emitted for every euro of GDP. While GDP is growing, total greenhouse gas emissions are decreasing, which clearly indicates a decoupling of greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth. The greenhouse gas intensity of the Dutch economy is one of the lowest in the EU-27.

The Dutch business sector is largely made up of small and medium-sized companies of up to 250 employees. Together, they accounted for 61.3 percent of the value added by the non-financial sector in 2023. SMEs’ contribution to the economy has been consistent for years.

Labour income accounted for 69 percent of earned income in 2023, and this share is trending downwards. This means that the share of companies’ operating profits in earned income is increasing. In the mid-1990s, labour income share (LIS) was still above 80 percent. The LIS is calculated only for industries where it makes sense to distinguish between income from labour and profit (the market sector). The LIS is not calculated for the government sector, education, health care, the mining and quarrying industry, financial services or real estate activities.

Subjective assessment refers to how satisfied people in employment are with their working conditions, and to how much trust people place in banks and large corporations. In 2024, over half of the population aged 15 and over had a fairly high or very high level of trust in banks and their functioning. Trust in banks has increased almost continuously from a low of 34 percent in 2013 to 54.2 percent in 2024. Confidence in large companies increased by 4.5 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, reaching 40.3 percent.

Figures from Statistics Netherlands and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) show that in 2024, 77.8 percent of workers were satisfied with their working conditions. This figure was roughly the same in 2023.