The Big Six^® are the six most important challenges for sustainable development in the 21st century:

• climate change
• freshwater scarcity and pollution
• deforestation and desertification
• absolute poverty
• loss of biodiversity
• population growth and migration

SD-M^® first named these challenges in 2002 on the basis of international standards and expounded on them in the five years after. The Big Six are protected by copyright.

Institutional investors expect that the integration of the Big Six in their investing will lead to outperformance in the long term (see page 18 of a study of leading European pension funds that hold € 460 billion in assets). This has now been proven in practice. The SD-M^® GmbH draws on these scientific findings for its consulting.

Along with industry-specific SD-KPIs, the Big Six offer companies the opportunity to concentrate on core challenges of sustainable development.