The world is not on track to meet the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, comprising 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030. According to one of the main authors, Prof. Prajal Pradhan (Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen and guest scientist at PIK): "One reason behind failing SDGs is cherry-picking a few without considering their complex interactions."
The authors present a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) systems model to determine the influence (positive or negative) of all targets on the objective of the 2030 Agenda—a sustainable world. In the model, these systemic synergies are considered levers for successfully implementing the 2030 Agenda, while trade-offs are potential hurdles. It highlights that there are overall more levers than hurdles among the SDGs. Prajal Pradhan: "Our SDG systems model contributes to rescuing the 2030 Agenda by supporting systematic prioritization of the goals and targets based on their complex interactions instead of cherry-picking."
The successful paper was selected from among 151 articles in the field and published in the Sustainability Science Journal in 2022.
