In 2021, China’s power generation industry took the lead in launching carbon emissions trading, ushering in a major challenge and opportunity for the sustainable development of power enterprises. Assessing the sustainable development performance of power enterprises has become the key to the sustainable financing and development of power enterprises in this new developmental stage. Based on the integration of the long-term UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) evaluation indicators of listed companies, this paper constructed an index system for the evaluation of the sustainable development of electric power companies consisting of 75 indicators corresponding to four dimensions: economic, social, environmental, and governance. Given the vision for the sustainable development of electric power companies, the assessment thresholds for each indicator were determined by the practical exploration and typical progress assessment of SDGs. Aggregate assessment and dashboard assessment techniques for the sustainable development of electric power companies were established, and we conducted a robustness analysis of the evaluation system. The results revealed the following details: (1) The disclosure of sustainable development indicators of Chinese electricity enterprises was 94.13%, among which the four dimensions of economy, environment, society, and governance were 99.89%, 82.62%, 94.00%, and 97.71%, respectively. (2) The aggregate sustainable development index for Chinese power companies was 59.34, and the environment, society, governance, and economic scores were 62.10, 64.49, 76.79, and 41.37, respectively. (3) Based on the results of the dashboard, investment in innovation, public welfare, emissions of greenhouse gases, and economic sustainability are the key factors limiting the achievement of sustainable development. (4) The framework’s robustness analysis showed that the results of the evaluation of this paper’s indicator framework fell within a reasonable range of variation using different ranking and weighting systems. Chinese electricity companies should comprehensively control costs and expenses, strengthen capital management, expand funding channels, focus on enhancing R&D capabilities, enhance their scientific and technological innovation management systems, and improve their disclosure of information about greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption and use, and employee issues to improve the overall level of sustainable development. The evaluation system developed in this paper further enriches the evaluation of corporate sustainability performance. This paper explored the application of the SDG index and dashboard construction methods at the national level to the evaluation of sustainability at the corporate level, providing a clear picture of corporate performance with respect to various dimensions, issues, criteria, and indicators.

Green and low-carbon development are important initiatives to promote the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this study, a systematic evaluation method for regional green and low-carbon development levels was established by referring to the evaluation methods of other literature. The evaluation method includes assessing the overall green and low-carbon development levels of the evaluation objects, as well as analyzing the coupling coordination of the two subsystems of green development and low-carbon development. The results show that China’s green low-carbon development level shows a rising trend year by year from 2012 to 2021, but there is still much space for progress. As for 2021, 2 provinces are in the Fair stage, 25 provinces are in the Accepted stage, and 4 provinces are in the Good stage. Provinces with higher levels of green and low-carbon development are characterized by spatial clustering, and the level of green and low-carbon development in the southeast coastal provinces is significantly higher than that in the northwest inland provinces. This study measures the coupling coordination degree of the two subsystems of green development and low-carbon development in each province. The average coupling coordination degree of China’s green and low-carbon development shows a rising trend year by year from 2012 to 2021. By 2021, the coupling coordination degree of China’s 29 provinces belongs to the High level type, and only two provinces belong to the Low level type. This study provides a provincial map of China’s green and low-carbon development levels and a distribution map of the coupling coordination degree of the green and low-carbon development subsystems, which provides support for an in-depth understanding of the spatial–temporal distribution of and development trends in China’s green and low-carbon development level. This study provides support for a deeper understanding of the spatial and temporal distribution and development trend of China’s green and low-carbon development level. The study also provides data to support China’s efforts to promote synergies in reducing pollution and carbon emissions.