The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 to work towards a sustainable society in which economic prosperity is achieved and social and environmental concerns are met. Under the SDGs, businesses are expected to assume increasingly active roles. However, little is known about the relationship between the preferences of stakeholders and businesses' contributions to the SDGs. This study, therefore, investigates whether the SDGs can function as business norms by examining stakeholder support for sustainable practices. Specifically, the study examines preferences for companies that contribute to the SDGs and the effects of raising awareness regarding the inherent nature of the SDGs on stakeholders' preferences. To this end, we used a nationwide online survey dataset conducted in Japan (n = 6043) and employed a combination of conjoint analysis and an information treatment experiment. The results showed that implementing the SDGs increased stakeholders' preferences for companies. However, a gap existed between the stakeholders' preferred SDGs and the companies' priorities concerning the SDG implementation. The findings suggest that increasing stakeholders' awareness is effective in closing the gap.

联合国大会于 2015 年制定了可持续发展目标 (SDG)，旨在实现经济繁荣并满足社会和环境问题的可持续社会。在可持续发展目标下，企业有望扮演越来越积极的角色。然而，人们对利益相关者的偏好与企业对可持续发展目标的贡献之间的关系知之甚少。因此，本研究通过检查利益相关者对可持续实践的支持来调查可持续发展目标是否可以作为商业规范发挥作用。具体而言，该研究调查了对可持续发展目标做出贡献的公司的偏好，以及提高对可持续发展目标固有性质的认识对利益相关者偏好的影响。为此，我们使用了在日本进行的全国性在线调查数据集（n  = 6043）并采用联合分析和信息处理实验的组合。结果表明，实施可持续发展目标增加了利益相关者对公司的偏好。然而，利益相关者的首选可持续发展目标与公司关于可持续发展目标实施的优先事项之间存在差距。研究结果表明，提高利益相关者的意识可以有效缩小差距。