Linking the UN SDGs and environmental assessment: Towards a conceptual framework
Introduction
The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a reference point for policy-making processes worldwide. A study for the European Parliament summarized their importance: “The adoption of the SDGs represents a paradigm shift in how development is considered in every aspect of society. It represents a change in thinking about domestic and international development, about economics, environment, and society, and a transformation of those towards sustainability. With this shift in thinking must come a shift in how we govern societies and implement solutions to these global challenges” (Niestroy et al., 2019, p. 12). This paradigm shift is followed by an urge to promote, develop, and modify governance mechanisms in order to mainstream the SDGs in decision making (e.g. Niestroy et al., 2019; ADB and UNEP, 2019).
As globally institutionalized governance mechanisms, Environmental Assessments (EAs) have been pointed out as being “of high relevance for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals” (UNECE, 2017a), and that the “SEA Directive plays an important role in attaining the SDGs' objectives.” (EC, 2018). Further, it is assumed that the SDGs will likely “become a central component of future environmental assessment” (UNEP, 2017). Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is also seen as an important tool “for ensuring that conflicts and trade-offs [between SDGs] are understood” (ADB and UNEP, 2019). Authors have even argued that “… it will be incongruous not to imbed the SDGs in assessment processes that support decision-making” (Hacking, 2019, p. 14). Within the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA), a working group has been established on SDGs and impact assessment (IA), and a related publication has enumerated potentials to link IA with SDGs (Partidário and Verheem, 2019). The publication argues that SDG targets can lead to objective-driven IA and, at the same time, IA can translate the SDG agenda into practical actions.
Four years after the adoption of the SDGs, the experiences with linking SDGs and EAs have emerged in different countries and organizations. There is, however, very limited overview of what the current status is on linking SDGs and EAs, and in what ways this is done. In addition, as González Del Campo et al. (2020) found, the engagement of impact assessment community has been limited in regard to actively linking SEA and SDGs as they are used more independently than from a mutual perspective.
Nevertheless, and as this article will show, there are a series of contributions from theory and practice of how SDGs and EA can be related. They vary from simple and passive descriptions of relations to SDGs in EA reports (e.g. World Bank, 2017) to deliberate and comprehensive integrations of SDGs and EA (e.g. Hacking, 2019). In line with González Del Campo et al. (2020), there is a need within the impact assessment community to reflect upon the integration of EA and SDGs and upon the types of linkages in the form of a conceptual framework. The ambition is to make a conceptual framework that supports clearer direction for both theory and practice regarding what types of linkages are possible with what objectives and resulting outcomes. Without such framework, there is a risk of missing opportunities for achieving relevant and substantive integration, as well as for flaws in matching expectations among involved actors.
The paper is primarily based upon the literature on impact assessment and especially the globally institutionalized tools Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and SEA. With its focus on SDGs, it builds upon a comprehensive body of studies exploring the linkages between environmental assessments and sustainability (see e.g. White and Noble, 2013; Lamorgese and Geneletti, 2013).
Section snippets
Review methodology
Linking EA and SDGs appears as an emerging research theme, though still with insufficient literature, as also found by González Del Campo et al. (2020). In order to better unfold and analyze the possible ways of integrating the two, the authors did a literature review. The review was undertaken as a systematic review based on the guidelines proposed by Boland et al. (2017) and following their 10-step framework. The review was designed to locate, appraise and synthesize scholarly knowledge
Emerging field
A total of 25 articles were reviewed with the aim of identifying the types of links between SDGs and Impact Assessment in the literature. These articles were classified in four different groups as shown in Table 1. As it can be seen, the majority of articles make a general mention or name specific SDGs but without further exploration and only five propose and empirically test specific models for integration. It can also be observed that for EIA-SEA, the studies have moved from general
Types and levels of integration and ‘non-integration’
The importance of integrating SDGs and EA is widely acknowledged. However, as the review concludes, the meaning of linking and integrating the two is still novel and needs conceptual clarification. The integration of SDGs and EA can be established in different ways with different purposes, different levels of ambition, and different potentials in relation to the goal of sustainable development. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to clarify the levels and underlying purposes of
Conclusion and reflection
In this study we sought to understand and unfold the integration of environmental assessment (EA) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). EA is a highly relevant governance mechanism for embedding the SDGs in decision-making, and at the same time, SDGs can strengthen EA. It is, however, important to be reflective and clear about how SDGs and EAs are integrated in decision-making in order to secure the transformative potential of integration towards sustainability and also avoid
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgement
We would like to show our support to the International Association for Impact Assessment and the established taskforce led by Maria Rosário Partidário and Rob Verheem, for their effort to foster integrated approaches between EA and SDGs. Finally, we acknowledge the insightful and valuable comments of the reviewers of this article, who provided clear instruction that helped us.
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