Reflecting on 10 Years of SDSN
At the Rio+20 Summit a decade ago, the UN member states launched a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs ) to put the world on the path to sustainable development that combines economic wellbeing, social justice, and environmental sustainability. We are now in the midst of the great global effort to create a global path to sustainable development that “leaves no one behind.”
Universities and knowledge institutions have an essential role to play in meeting this great challenge. Through cutting-edge research, they provide much of the new knowledge and innovation that is needed. Through their educational activities, they provide future leaders with the skills needed to understand and implement sustainable development. As trusted institutions committed to inclusion, truth, and social justice, universities are uniquely placed to help convene all stakeholders to work together to solve the pressing problems of the age.
SDSN was created by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Professor Jeffrey Sachs with this goal uppermost in mind: mobilize the world’s universities and knowledge institutions to play their historic role in the great transformation to sustainable development. The Secretary General tasked the new network to “work with stakeholders including business, civil society, UN agencies and other international organizations to identify and share the best pathways to achieve sustainable development.
The first meeting of the Leadership Council of SDSN took place in New York in November 2012 with more than 70 top scientists and leaders from business, politics, and civil society in attendance. Professor Sachs told the new Leadership Council that "In the 20 years since the first Rio Earth Summit, the world has largely failed to address some of the most serious environmental and social problems pressing in on us. We can’t afford business as usual. We need to engage the academic and scientific community and tap into worldwide technological know‐how in the private sector and civil society, in order to develop and implement practical solutions.”
Ten years after the launch of SDSN it is worth reflecting on the growing global role of the SDSN and its achievements.
The first achievement was to provide expert input into the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the years 2012 to 2015, the SDSN established 10 global expert groups to support global problem solving in ten critical areas, including economic growth, jobs, poverty reduction, gender equality, universal access to healthcare, the transition to low carbon energy, and sustainable cities. These expert groups provided inputs to the UN processes responsible for designing and adopting the new goals. As one leading example, the SDSN Sustainable Cities Thematic Group, a key player in the UrbanSDG campaign, was instrumental in securing a sustainable cities goal (SDG11).
A second major achievement has been to create an extraordinary global network of universities and knowledge institutions covering most of the world. There are now 1,728 SDSN member institutions from 143 countries, making the SDSN by far the largest such organisation in the world. The SDSN is successfully promoting collaboration across countries, enabling universities to share their knowledge and to learn from each other’s experience. At a time of geopolitical tensions, when barriers are rising between countries, the SDSN is making extra efforts to ensure that dialogue and collaboration continues globally. National governments may have enemies, but sustainable development needs the cooperation and participation of all nations – and such a global and cooperative ethic is very much part of the life of scholars around the world and at the core of the SDSN.
A third major achievement has been to establish several large-scale global research initiatives aimed at finding solutions to sustainable development challenges. As one example of which SDSN is deeply proud, the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project ( DDPP ) led by SDSN, with the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDRI) at Science Po, brought together 16 research teams from countries representing 75% of global carbon emissions. Starting in 2013 and finishing in 2015, the teams developed roadmaps for deep decarbonization in their respective countries. This was the first time that country-based plans had been brought together in a global collaborative exercise. The DDPP influenced national climate policies and helped to demonstrate in the lead up to the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) that a global commitment to deep decarbonization by mid-century was both possible and appropriate.
Through the DDPP, SDSN played an instrumental role in developing and popularising the concept of long-term pathways using the process of “back-casting,” that is, to work backwards from a clear and quantitative target in order to determine the investments and other transformations needed to achieve that target. The process has been adopted by SDSN research teams, such as the Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and bioEnergy ( FABLE ) Consortium, to identify low-carbon pathways, sustainable land-use and food system pathways, and financing needs for the SDGs.
In this spirit, SDSN has developed a Six Transformations Framework, based on a paperby Professor Sachs and colleagues first published in Nature Sustainability . This framework is helping to guide long-term transformation policies and investments by governments, business and civil society.
A fourth major achievement of SDSN has been to become a globally trusted source of information, data, and rigorous analysis on sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Report is published annually and is the ‘go to’ report ranking countries’ SDG performance (reported, in part, as the SDG Index) and analysing the trends and challenges faced by the UN member states. Alongside the global report, the SDSN also publishes more detailed regional, country, and sub-national reports. This SDSN information is helping governments and civil society to identify priorities for action and identify gaps that must be closed to achieve the SDGs.
This year is also the tenth anniversary of the World Happiness Report , published by SDSN, which reports on how people evaluate their own lives and wellbeing and provides insights into what makes people satisfied with their lives, and how governments can promote life satisfaction and wellbeing.
A fifth major achievement is SDSN’s support for Education for Sustainable Development. The SDG Academy is SDSN’s flagship education initiative. It brings together the world’s leading experts to provide free online courses on the SDGs and related topics to people all over the world – many of whom would not otherwise have the opportunity. Since 2014, more than 640,000 learners have enrolled in the SDG Academy courses.
The SDSN’s Global Schools program , with support from SDSN Youth , supports primary and secondary schools to integrate sustainable development into school curricula. And SDSN is sharing knowledge about sustainable development with students and the broader community through the International Conference on Sustainable Development ( ICSD ) hosted in New York in September alongside the UN General Assembly. The conference has grown from a few hundred attendees a decade ago to more than two thousand this year.
A sixth SDSN achievement is the growing collaboration between SDSN country and regional networks on many local, national, and regional initiatives helping all parts of the world to advance towards sustainable development. For example, SDSN has worked with scientists and other partners throughout the Amazon region to convene the Science Panel for the Amazon ( SPA ), bringing together more than 200 scientists to undertake an unprecedented assessment of the state of the Amazon ecosystems. SDSN networks have collaborated across regions and continents to organise conferences on SDGs, build shared data platforms and find solutions to climate challenges.
During the past decade, new and unexpected challenges have constantly arisen, and SDSN is always ready to adjust, adapt, and be helpful to the unexpected. SDSN has hosted, for example, The Lancet Covid-19 Commission in response to the pandemic. SDSN is hosting an ad hoc High-Level Working Group on SDG Stimulus, to address the growing financial challenges facing the developing countries. No doubt new and complex challenges will continue to arise – and SDSN will be there to help address them.
We at SDSN know that we still face a momentous set of challenges ahead. Sustainable development requires, most importantly of all, goodwill, trust, and cooperation among all nations. At a time of great geopolitical tensions and outright war, SDSN is more committed than ever to doing our part to mobilize the world’s knowledge, goodwill, energies of young people (and all people young at heart!) to work for peace, prosperity, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
We hope that you will join us in this great challenge of our time.