Announcements
Announcements
This article argues that the transformative vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can only be realized by engaging the many agents of change beyond governments, particularly businesses, cities and civil society, and proposes approaches to help to mobilize these stakeholders.
The UN Secretary General published his report on the SDGs in December 2014, and the UN General Assembly is expected to adopt the final goals and targets in September 2015. However, the SDGs risk falling short of expectations because of what we call “cockpit-ism”: the illusion that top-down steering by governments and intergovernmental organizations alone can address global problems.
In view of the limited effectiveness of intergovernmental efforts and questions about the capacity of national governments to effect change, the SDGs need to additionally mobilize new agents of change such as businesses, cities and civil society. To galvanize such a broad set of actors, multiple perspectives on sustainable development are needed that respond to the various motives and logics of change of these different actors.
We propose four connected perspectives which can strengthen the universal relevance of the SDGs: “planetary boundaries” to stress the urgency of addressing environmental concerns and to target governments to take responsibility for (global) public goods; “the safe and just operating space” to highlight the interconnectedness of social and environmental concerns and its distributive consequences; “the energetic society” to benefit from the willingness of a broad group of actors worldwide to take action; and “green competition” to stimulate innovation and new business practices.
To realize the transformative potential of the SDGs, these four perspectives should be reflected in the focus and content of the SDGs that will be negotiated in the run up to September 2015 and its further implementation.
Read the article (external link to open access journal)
Programme / This programme aims to build a collaborative platform to accelerate renewable energy deployment in La Guajira.
Journal article / This study informs the scientific community and decision-makers on planning for sustainable biowaste valorisation that addresses context-dependencies.
Event on 01 May in Coventry / Sam Bland will host this session on the SAMHE project and the opportunities and challenges of using web apps to engage young people in citizen science.
Design and development by Soapbox.
