Towards understanding interactions between Sustainable Development Goals: the role of environment–human linkages

Abstract

Only 10 years remain to achieve all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) globally, so there is a growing need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of action by targeting multiple SDGs. The SDGs were conceived as an 'indivisible whole', but interactions between SDGs need to be better understood. Several previous assessments have begun to explore interactions including synergies and possible conflicts between the SDGs, and differ widely in their conclusions. Although some highlight the role of the more environmentally-focused SDGs in underpinning sustainable development, none specifically focuses on environment-human linkages. Assessing interactions between SDGs, and the influence of environment on them can make an important contribution to informing decisions in 2020 and beyond. Here, we review previous assessments of interactions among SDGs, apply an influence matrix to assess pairwise interactions between all SDGs, and show how viewing these from the perspective of environment-human linkages can influence the outcome. Environment, and environment-human linkages, influence most interactions between SDGs. Our action-focused assessment enables decision makers to focus environmental management to have the greatest impacts and to identify opportunities to build on synergies and reduce trade-offs between particular SDGs. It may enable sectoral decision makers to seek support from environment managers for achieving their goals. We explore cross-cutting issues and the relevance and potential application of our approach in supporting decision making for progress to achieve the SDGs.

Interactions among Sustainable Development Goals: Knowledge for identifying multipliers and virtuous cycles

“…The first analytical part of this study consists of graphically representing the network of goals as a 17 × 17 cross-impact matrix (Dawes, 2020;Scharlemann et al, 2020;Weitz et al, 2018). The degree centrality of a node is a straightforward measure used in SNA and defined as the number of ties belonging to a given node (Freeman, 1978).…”

Analysing interactions among the sustainable development goals: findings and emerging issues from local and global studies

“…However, the IGES tool does not simulate specific policies over the SDG time horizon and, therefore, cannot be used to assess synergies associated with different policy mixes. A review of methods is given by Scharlemann et al ( 2020 ) and Breuer et al ( 2019 ).…”

“…For each of these, the authors use a different method for analysing SDG interactions, with new methodological elements. In the first example, Scharlemann et al ( 2020 ) apply an “influence matrix” in a unique fashion to identify the importance of SDG interactions through the lens of human–environment interlinkages. In the second, Antoniades et al ( 2019 ) present a new application of econometrics to identify the relationships between the SDG on poverty alleviation with other SDGs.…”

“…In this Special Feature, Scharlemann et al ( 2020 ) use an influence matrix to examine pairwise interactions among 16 goals (excluding the “enabling” SDG 17). They investigate two aspects of SDG interactions: (1) The degree to which an action to achieve one goal (e.g., research, innovation, policy, management) influences the achievement of other goals; and (2) How deliberately taking a particular perspective (geographic, political, temporal, sectoral or social group) influences SDG interactions (interdependencies, co-benefits and trade-offs).…”

“…Although there is a growing body of literature around the concepts of SDG interactions and an integrative approach to the SDGs (e.g., Breuer et al 2019 ; Kroll et al 2019 ; Scharlemann et al 2020 ) the study of SDG interactions is still a relatively new area of research with many knowledge gaps. The objective of this Special Feature of Sustainability Science is to reduce this gap by providing findings and emerging issues about three key topics: (1) characteristics of SDG interactions; (2) methods/methodology to detect and analyse SDG interactions; and (3) the elaboration of drivers that influence SDG synergies.…”