Based on the regulation of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia No. 102 of 2000 dated 10 November 2000 regarding National Standardization, what is meant by standard is a technical specification or something that is standardized including procedure and method composed on the basis of a consensus of all stakeholders/relevant parties by considering safety, security, health, environmental requirements as well as development in science and technology, experience, current and future developments in order to gain the optimum benefit. While standardization is a process of formulating, determining, applying and revising standard, this is conducted in a good order and by cooperating with all relevant parties.

The standardization activity conducted by SDI is an activity to formulate, determine, and apply sustainable development standard, which includes criteria and indicator from the respective aspects of sustainability, namely economy, social and environment, including its procedure and method. The formulated standard is adjusted to the international standard of sustainable development, by taking into account that sustainable development can not be seen merely for a national scale; it should be seen from a global scale.

The above Government Regulation also explains about Certification as a series of activities of issuing certificates for goods and services. While certificate is a written warranty provided by an accredited agency/laboratory in order to represent/state that a good, service, process, system or personnel has met the required standard.

The certification activity in SDI in a series of activities of issuing certificate for products produced from activities that meet the standard of sustainable development. The series of activities referred to as above are, among others, assessment, which is done on the basis of criteria and indicators of SDI standards, which are referred to in verifier, and applies the procedure and method that have been standardized, by prioritizing a scientific, objective, transparent, inclusive/participatory and balanced/fair approach, as well as referring to international standard, yet taking into consideration local condition.

The main objective of this program is to disseminate information regarding the result of SDI’s research both to communities in Indonesia and international communities. In this case, SDI facilitates meetings among various stakeholders such as NGOs, government agencies, local parliament, academicians and various other community organizations through various discussion forums in order to share information, experiences and expertise.

Capacity building activity/program in SDI is meant to be a process that is able to improve the capability of a person, an organization/institution or a system to achieve a goal (in this case sustainable development), of a long term nature and one which involves many parties (participatory).
The target is to establish a manageable, effective, efficient, professional and accountable system and institution as well as to improve the managing capacity of professional and competent human resources in motivating the implementation on sustainable development in order to support the achievement of sustainable development.

SDI conducts a research focusing on the agenda that will strengthen discussion and various inventions/findings especially in environmental sectors (forest, mining, marine, climate, energy, fresh water, etc.), as well as cross-sector topics such as economic condition, new technology and globalization. With this research program, the community is expected to play a role in formulating various policy alternatives as well as public policy improvement. SDI Researchers are those coming from various fields of science.

As for natural resources management, SDI analyzes the performance of various programs government of the government and of private sectors in forestry, marine, mining and other resources sectors. SDI also develops research programs in sustainable natural resources and environment which are applicable to improve community welfare. Research is also conducted for developing community empowerment programs in order to make sure that the result of research is relevant to the needs of the community.