Heading towards an unsustainable world: some of the implications of not achieving the SDGs

Walter Leal Filho; Franziska Wolf; Amanda Lange Salvia; Ali Beynaghi; Kalterina Shulla; Marina Kovaleva; Claudio R P Vasconcelos

doi:10.1007/s43621-020-00002-x

Heading towards an unsustainable world: some of the implications of not achieving the SDGs

Discov Sustain. 2020;1(1):2. doi: 10.1007/s43621-020-00002-x. Epub 2020 Sep 4.

Authors

Walter Leal Filho¹, Franziska Wolf¹, Amanda Lange Salvia¹, Ali Beynaghi², Kalterina Shulla³, Marina Kovaleva¹, Claudio R P Vasconcelos^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ European School of Sustainability Science and Research, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Ulmenliet 20, 21033 Hamburg, Germany.
² Office of Sustainability, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran.
³ ZEF, Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Germany, Genscherallee 3, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
⁴ Laboratory of Sustainability Engineering and Consumption, Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, PB Brazil.
⁵ Algoritmi Research Centre, School of Engineering, University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceived at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 (Rio + 20), and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. They are part of a larger framework, namely the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Since then, many countries round the world have been engaging in respect of their implementation. The slow progress seen in the implementation of the SDGs, is in contrast with the many negative implications of not implementing them. This paper outlines the relevance of the SDGs, the barriers currently seen in respect of their implementation and outlines what is at stake, if they are not duly implemented. To accomplish this, a thorough literature review of contributions published in the field of SDGs in English between the years 2012-2020 was performed.

Publication types

Review