Key findings: Technologies for sustainability
Based on the goals, targets, indicators, metadata, or policy documents provided by the United Nations, 100 distinct technological categories relevant to SDGs have been identified, encompassing fields such as renewable energy, transportation, agriculture, and medical devices. Each of these technologies corresponds to one or more SDGs.
The following visualization illustrates the 100 technologies linked to the SDGs. The size of each bubble represents the number of patent families associated with that particular technology.
The sustainable relevance across WIPO technology sectors
WIPO has created a comprehensive technology concordance crucial for extensive analysis. This technology concordance table is based on the International Patent Classification (IPC), which is a highly detailed technology classification system applied to patents worldwide. The WIPO technology concordance comprises 35 technology fields, grouped into five higher-level technology sectors, namely Electrical engineering, Instruments, Chemistry, Mechanical engineering, and Other fields.
All technology sectors have exhibited double-digit growth in the share of SDG-related patents over the past 20 years. 46% of Chemistry patents are now related to the SDGs, encompassing pharmaceuticals and innovations enhancing processes vital for fields like greenhouse gas emission reduction. Mechanical engineering and Instruments, including medical devices, also exhibits a similar trend with over one-third of patents in these sectors related to the SDGs. Electrical engineering and the Other fields sectors also display upward trends, albeit at a lower rate. However, in recent years, Electrical engineering has surged at a faster pace than the others.
Building on this further, the figure below illustrates the proportion of SDG-related patents within various WIPO technology sectors and technology fields.
At the technology sector level, the Instruments sector, which includes medical devices, and the Chemistry sector, which includes pharmaceuticals, exhibit a higher overlap with SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing. Looking at the more granular technology field level, the link between SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing and Pharmaceuticals and other biological and medical fields is particularly strong. SDG 2 Zero Hunger aligns closely with Food chemistry. SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation with Environmental technology, and SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities with Civil engineering.