Seeing the Whole: Implementing the SDGs in the an Integrated and Coherent Way
It is widely accepted that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require implementation that is both universal and integrated; every country must pursue policies which coherently span the economic, environmental and social aspects of the sustainable development agenda to ensure the best results.
This report sheds light for policymakers on how this can be achieved, with the simultaneous focus on the twelfth SDG, Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) and its related policies within the EU context.
A joint research piece by Stakeholder Forum, Bioregional and Newcastle University and funded by Government of Finland, the project follows from Stakeholder Forum’s earlier Universality report which identified SCP as the biggest transformational challenge amongst the SDGs for the developed world, and this is why we chose SDG 12 as our focal point in the present work. The EU was selected as the main test bed in the previous report, and has again been the subject of focus in this current one.
The report divides into two halves: one that explores the interlinkages between the SCP targets and other SDG targets using a novel methodology, which reveals the level of integration of SCP with the rest of the SDGs, and goes on to demonstrate how a fully integrated SDG agenda can be achieved using SCP as an example. The second part analyses the extent to which EU legislation and policy currently deals with the SCP Goal, and identifies opportunities for policymakers to extend and deepen this coverage.
The policy recommendations made throughout the piece are vital for facilitating the application by policymakers of an integrated and universal sustainable development agenda.
- The major achievements of this work are to have:
produced an effective and scalable methodology to analyse the type and strength of interlinkages amongst SDG targets; - piloted the application of this methodology to SDG 12, and commenced research on EU legislation’s coverage of SDG 12, both of which can be scaled and applied to other SDGs;
- offered key recommendations on the basis of our research to policymakers helping them to pursue an integrated and universal sustainable development agenda.
