The imperative to measure progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has resulted in a proliferation of targets and indicators fed by an ever-expanding set of observations. This proliferation undermines one principal purpose of the SDGs: to provide a framework for coordinated action across policy domains. Systems approaches to defining Essential Variables have focused monitoring of climate, biodiversity and oceans and offer opportunities to coordinate SDG monitoring. We propose four criteria and a process to identify Essential SDG Variables (ESDGVs), which will highlight interactions and gaps in current monitoring. The ESDGV criteria suggest a research agenda to: develop and test interdisciplinary system models; test transformations theory for sustainable development; analyse policy interactions; and formulate models to support further refinements of ESDGVs and SDG monitoring.

衡量可持续发展目标的进展势在必行，这导致了由越来越多的意见提供的目标和指标的激增。这种扩散破坏了可持续发展目标的一个主要目的：为跨政策领域的协调行动提供框架。定义基本变量的系统方法着重于气候，生物多样性和海洋的监测，并为协调可持续发展目标的监测提供了机会。我们提出了四个标准和一个过程来识别基本SDG变量（ESDGV），这些变量将突出显示当前监控中的相互作用和差距。ESDGV标准提出了一项研究议程，以：开发和测试跨学科系统模型；测试可持续发展的变革理论；分析政策互动；