A rapid assessment of co-benefits and trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals

By G. Singh, A. Cisneros‐Montemayor, W. Swartz, William W. L. Cheung, J. Guy, T. Kenny, Chris McOwen, R. Asch, J. Geffert, C. Wabnitz and 3 more. Marine Policy, 2017

372 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Achieving the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) results in many ecological, social, and economic consequences that are inter-related. Understanding relationships between sustainability goals and determining their interactions can help prioritize effective and efficient policy options. This paper presents a framework that integrates existing knowledge from literature and expert opinions to rapidly assess the relationships between one SDG goal and another. Specifically, given the important role of the oceans in the world's social-ecological systems, this study focuses on how SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and the targets within that goal, contributes to other SDG goals. This framework differentiates relationships based on compatibility (co-benefit, trade-off, neutral), the optional nature of achieving one goal in attaining another, and whether these relationships are context dependent. The results from applying this framework indicate that oceans SDG targets are related to all other SDG goals, with two ocean targets (of seven in total) most related across all other SDG goals. Firstly, the ocean SDG target to increase economic benefits to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries for sustainable marine uses has positive relationships across all SDGs. Secondly, the ocean SDG target to eliminate overfishing, illegal and destructive fishing practices is a necessary pre-condition for achieving the largest number of other SDG targets. This study highlights the importance of the oceans in achieving sustainable development. The rapid assessment framework can be applied to other SDGs to comprehensively map out the subset of targets that are also pivotal in achieving sustainable development.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2222072eccbd7a6dd7503494b782f8d2f9c7c088

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Citations in the corpus

Mapping the Sustainable Development Goals Relationships (2020, background): “, 2018 [27] • Focuses on how SDG14 (Life below water) contributes to other goals eliminating poverty (SDG1) and ending hunger (SDG2) are highly dependent on ocean sustainability.”
Levers and leverage points for pathways to sustainability (2020, background): “It is also clear that interventions in pursuit of just a few goals risk having negative effects on others and missing opportunities to realize synergies and manage trade-offs (Palomo et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2018; Tallis et al., 2018).”
To Achieve a Sustainable Blue Future, Progress Assessments Must Include Interdependencies between the Sustainable Development Goals (2020, background): “4 (‘‘by 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding, and other disasters and tha”
Advancing Marine Biological Observations and Data Requirements of the Complementary Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) Frameworks (2018, background): “Many other SDGs are closely linked to SDG 14, such as those concerning food security, health, gender equality, economic growth, climate action, and sustainable cities and responsible consumption (Singh et al., 2017).”
Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from leading European banks (2019, background): “…in order to prioritize policy for more effective contribution to the SDG framework and the reported progress over achieving these global indicators, it should also be taken into consideration that they can be largely complementary and in some cases dependent upon one another (Singh et al., 2017).”