The United Nations adopted a resolution on September 25, 2015 entitled Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The culmination of efforts spanning more than forty years for an integrated approach to development and environment, this historical decision has placed sustainable development at the center of the international development agenda, long dominated by economic concerns. The agenda emphasizes the importance of interlinkages between economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development and proposes solving problems by providing concrete behavioral targets. At the core of the agenda lie the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a list of 17 goals and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030. It presents challenges to humankind over the next fifteen years, as well as some ideas for behavioral solutions to these challenges.

This special issue focuses on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. The SDGs are viewed in this issue as an important device for transforming the world towards sustainability. Sustainable development, defined as “development that meets the needs of the present while safeguarding Earth’s life-support system, on which the welfare of current and future generations depends” (Griggs et al., 2013), may not be realized by 2030. It is likely to take a longer-term effort to achieve it. Transformation, however, has to take place within the next fifteen years to enable humanity to keep safe operating space of the Earth’s life-support system.

The articles included in this special issue look at different dimensions of sustainability from different perspectives with different time scales. Some consider fundamental transformation towards sustainability, looking beyond 2030. For example, Murakami et al. look into a potential trade-off in the long run between the goals of improving energy access and of efficient use of natural resources, focusing especially on copper supplies. They suggest that managing such minerals in a sustainable manner will be required when constructing energy-related infrastructure. Hashimoto et al. examine potential approaches to reducing hunger and obesity simultaneously through fair distribution of energy intake in developing countries by 2050, noting the issue of obesity and overweight has become a challenge in both developed and developing countries.

Other papers focus on shorter-term behavioral change. Yamazaki et al. highlight quality education as a critical means of implementation for effectively delivering the SDG, arguing that fostering multiple ‘literacies’ by every human being to deal with complex challenges is key to sustainability. Yang and Managi analyse the degree to which resource use is decoupled from economic growth, emphasizing that factors such as institutions can play a more important role than income level in improving efficiency in developing countries. Reducing vulnerabilities caused by climate change is a critical challenge facing developing countries, and Mori’s paper identifies how different multilateral implementing entities could reduce vulnerability with greater impact through effective implementation of adaptation projects.

In the coming years both developing and developed countries face challenges to implementing the SDGs at the national level. In the case of Japan, two of the papers indicate people’s preferences in priority areas to be dealt with under national implementation as well as governments’ attempts to use indicators for measuring sustainability and people’s notions thereof. In the cases of Bangladesh and Indonesia, lessons are provided on how environmental governance needs to be addressed for the countries’ preparedness and transition to the SDGs. Countries also need to integrate the three dimensions of sustainable development fully when implementing actions related to the SDGs in order to achieve the transformation toward sustainability, as Kanie et al. highlight.

Sustainable development requires environmental, social and economic dimensions to be addressed simultaneously and in an integrated manner. This paper evaluates the degree of balance between these three dimensions in ten major proposals for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposals were chosen for detailed review and evaluated in terms of coverage and interlinkages between goals, using a methodology that evaluated the frequency of keyword use associated with each issue area. Our analysis found that none of the proposals was completely comprehensive, that they tended to emphasize issues related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), rather than planetary well-being and other issues, and that the Open Working Group outcome was comparatively well balanced. In addition, the inter-governmental proposals tended to cover a broader range of issues than research-led ones. This is because discussions in an international setting bring together views from multiple governments, which can ultimately lead to wider coverage of the issues, although this does not guarantee that they will be addressed in an integrated manner. As the SDGs are expected to be formulated at the national level, the challenge is to fully integrate the three dimensions of sustainable development so as to devise actions on the SDGs appropriately in order to achieve the transformation toward sustainability.

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in September 2015 with 169 targets signaling a course towards a sustainable future. Indicators are required for monitoring the level of achievement toward the targets, and to be well received by national governments stakeholders, these indicators should fully take into account circumstances and concerns of each country. Using national sustainability indicators already in place, this study aimed at investigating what national governments have attempted to measure and how such attempts have reflected people’s notions of sustainability. A thorough review was conducted of literature on indicators established by 28 countries and international organizations, and to investigate common usage of the term “sustainability,” phrases containing that word were searched on Internet websites. Merging outcomes of the review and search revealed that (1) some elements of sustainable development were more regularly used for measuring sustainability than others, and that (2) non-expert people used the term “sustainability” in a wide variety of ways, and the usage did not reflect the meaning intended by sustainability indicators set by the government. From these results, the authors argue that sustainable development indicators at the UN level could include several new indicators that are regularly used by lay people, and also that experts need to convey messages regarding the importance of sustainability in fields that are not being considered by the community.

Discussions on the Post-2015 Development Agenda preceding the conclusion of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015 have included the integration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in order to cover broader sustainability issues suitable for both developed and developing countries. While there is growing interest in negotiations among policymakers surrounding 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, research efforts for understanding what citizens in different parts of the world really seek in life have been limited to a few prominent initiatives such as MY World 2015. Based on an analysis of a survey study (n=1,855), this study attempted to highlight citizens’ needs and interests in Japan among key MDGs/SDGs under discussion at the international level. This study was designed to compare priorities among citizens over 15 years of age in Japan in 25 social areas, including the environment, employment, health and safety as well as more specific issues in the particular area of sustainability. The results of the study indicate that the issues with higher priority among Japanese citizens differ greatly from those originally perceived and addressed under the MDGs. There is relatively stronger interest in environmental issues and social resilience than in poverty or access to primary health care and safe water drinking in Japan. Regarding environmental issues, another noteworthy finding is that there is higher interest in global or regional environmental issues such as climate change and air pollution than in local environmental issues, such as waste management and soil contamination, that may impact directly upon people’s daily lives. The results of the study suggest a need for additional processes and mechanisms to integrate local needs and interests beyond the one-size-fits-all approach. In the post-2015 period, local and regional goal setting may be required to meet specific local conditions, while it may also be necessary to introduce monitoring efforts to ensure consistency between global and local goals in the new period.

Poverty and hunger are serious global issues. On the other hand, obesity and overweight are becoming an issue in both developed and developing countries. Recently, more attention has been directed towards addressing the double burden of malnourishment, which is the coexistence of both under-nutrition and over nutrition in the same population. In this study, we estimated future per-capita energy intake and future prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) and overnourishment (PoO) for developing countries. Then we considered potential approaches to the reduction of hunger and obesity simultaneously through fair distribution of energy intake, i.e., reduction of the interquartile range (IQR) of the distribution. Our results show that, although economic growth may contribute to undernourishment reduction, it will not completely “end hunger” since some countries will not reach the economic growth level needed to make this feasible. Further, obesity could become a more important issue because the number of overnourished (NoO) would become comparable with the number of undernourished (NoU). We also found that, if a 50% IQR range reduction could be achieved, NoU and NoO could be decreased dramatically. Introducing this type of indicator for consideration would enable us to reduce hunger and obesity simultaneously. Further discussion, however, is needed regarding the levels of IQR reduction targets.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), now known as the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” are aimed at building on the progress achieved through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition, they address persistent issues and new challenges facing people and the planet. While much discussion on the SDGs tends to focus on the content of the goals, the fundamental question remains of how to achieve these goals. Education has been one of the core components of the MDGs, and it continues to play a critical role in the SDGs. Against this background, our paper aims to highlight quality education as a critical means of implementation to deliver effective SDGs. In particular, we suggest the importance of having every human being foster multiple ‘literacies’ so as to actively reflect and deal with the complex challenges surrounding people both individually and collectively. To do so, we first draw lessons from the educational goals among the MDGs to demonstrate how multiple literacies acquired through quality education have contributed to the achievement of other MDGs. The evolution of the concept of ‘literacies’ is presented, situating it in the wider context of transformative and progressive pedagogy. Then, we focus on two important areas of the SDGs—namely, health and water—and demonstrate the importance of ‘health literacy’ and ‘water literacy’ as means of implementing the SDGs. The following two points are drawn as important lessons. First, for effective implementation of health-related SDGs, it is essential to empower all people by providing them with access to information and quality education, especially at the community level, in order to help prevent negative spirals that would affect subsequent generations. Second, it is equally imperative that government representatives and other stakeholders acquire an accurate understanding of water-related issues, and that systems be established to create opportunities for all people to gain the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes they need to respond effectively to water-related sustainability challenges. Finally, we argue that fostering literacies for all through quality education is also essential for achieving all the other SDGs, such as eradicating poverty, boosting shared prosperity and building peaceful, tolerant societies.

Ensuring energy access should be at the core of SDGs to support a healthy life for all. Among the SDGs, even though Target 12.2 includes the efficient use of natural resources, there is no explicit goal set for sustainable mineral use. Considering, however, that some metal supplies have drawn much attention in discussions of ‘critical metals,’ it is important to know their availability for a sustainable energy supply.In this paper, we chose two metals, copper and indium, and estimated their demand under various energy scenarios to see if those metals have sufficient availability. Copper is the most important material resource for the energy-related infrastructure. Indium is an example of a minor but critical metal for energy supply systems, and was therefore analyzed.The demand from energy supply systems accounts for a huge share of total copper demand. Our scenario analysis indicates that if we try to establish good energy access across the world as soon as possible, it may pose serious copper supply problems. An increase in demand that is too rapid would mean an increase not only in the absolute amount of demand but also before scrap could become available. The result is that primary copper demand could be quite huge, especially in the early stages of development. In that sense, copper may be a system-wide concern. Minor elements such as indium with huge applications in specific energy technologies are often called ‘energy critical metals,’ and our analysis of indium also supports this, because the system’s indium demand is huge. We conclude, however, that copper is one of the most critical metals for ensuring energy access for all.

Access, renewables and efficiency have been identified as targets in the field of energy under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Resilience is also a critical dimension that needs to be considered in moving towards sustainable energy. Diversification of direct energy suppliers has been the conventional recourse for achieving energy security. In consideration of the increasingly globalized nature of trade, energy and supply chain networks, however, this approach would be insufficient for addressing the resilience of energy supplies to potential environmental, economic and social shocks and disruptions. In this paper, we investigate countries’ energy resilience by quantifying diversity in suppliers of both direct and embodied energy and examine how selections of indirect energy supplies can affect the resilience of the entire embodied-energy trade network. We find that the geographical diversity of embodied energy imports is much greater than that of direct energy imports, and there are considerable variations across countries in the diversification of embodied energy imports. This suggests a possible strategy for countries that depend heavily on a few neighbors for their direct energy imports to diversify their supply chains globally in order to benefit from larger diversity of embodied energy supplies, thereby strengthening the energy resilience of their economies.

Various indicators have been developed for measuring the physical metabolism of economies and assessing the pressure on natural systems of material throughput. Among them, resource efficiency, which can represent the progress toward dematerialization, has become a popular indicator since the early 1990s. Improved resource efficiency, however, may not save resources, but result in even greater consumption through the so-called ‘Jevons paradox.’ This paper first compares countries’ achievement of relative decoupling and absolute decoupling from four types of natural resources over the 1990−2010 period. We then apply a panel analysis to identify the interaction between the improvement of resource efficiency and economic growth. Based on the results, we further estimate the impacts of efficiency improvement, taking rebound effects into account in the short run. The results show that almost one in three countries achieved absolute good decoupling during the last two decades. Among the four types of natural resources we examined in this study, fossil fuel, ores and biomass exhibited a strong relationship between efficiency and economic growth, but industrial minerals did not. Higher resource efficiency can contribute to economic growth and dematerialization, while the development of technology may lead to a rebound effect in the short run. Finally, we analyze implications of our findings for post-2015 SDG designation as setting various targets based on the priority between renewable and nonrenewable resources and levels of resource efficiency across different scales of countries.

The concept of development or, ultimately, well-being or happiness is now under extensive discussion by many scholars and international organizations. After all, what are we trying to measure and understand, and why? Another important question is whether or not we have a sufficient framework, tools, data and information to measure the state of people’s well-being and how it changes. The aim of this article is to conduct extensive reviews on the existing well-being concepts. The study discusses Indonesia’s well-being measurement framework as a case study. Through the discussion, the gaps between the ideal and the reality are identified. Based on these findings, directions are proposed to stakeholders on how they can implement the desirable improvements identified. Indonesia has collected national statistical data to facilitate analysis of its population’s well-being. This study provides suggestions for improving this collection system by proposing inclusive and participatory subjective measurement as an important supplemental approach to provide missing pieces of the puzzle in measuring changes in people’s well-being. Civil society often finds subjective measurements easier to understand and relate to. They are, in fact, the biggest stakeholder in development. If an inclusive framework for subjective measurement can be established, many potential or appropriate development practices may be realized. Important possibilities include international benchmarking and acceleration of development resonance driven by common people.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been adopted under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and act as a successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is therefore important to build on the MDGs’ achievements and address gaps and weakness that remain unresolved, thereby preparing properly for the 2030 Agenda. Despite the remarkable progress of Bangladesh and Indonesia towards many of the MDGs, there is inherent tension regarding the securing of a successful sustainable trajectory. Gaining environmental sustainability while aiming for inter-linkages and synergies between environmental, social and economic dimensions has remained an unresolved issue as both countries have more or less implemented development efforts in isolation, with inadequate consideration of the potential impacts on the environment. This paper, therefore, seeks to address gaps in environmental governance in both countries for gaining environmental sustainability and for ensuring national preparedness towards the SDG implementation. With that in mind, this article presents a diagnostic status of the current progress on environmental governance in Bangladesh and Indonesia using development indicators of progress towards the MDGs and their determinants in relation to environmental sustainability. The comparison of these two cases provides fruitful insights for drawing lessons on how environmental governance needs to be addressed at the level of individual low- and middle-income countries for their preparedness and transition to the SDGs.

This paper aims to identify the differences between an Adaptation Fund (AF) project and past follow-up projects of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-implemented National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA), and then explore the impacts of these projects on vulnerability reduction. Our conclusions are twofold. First, the AF project differs in terms of its approach and management arrangements. The UNDP-implemented NAPA follow-up projects took a multi-sector, comprehensive, donor-driven approach, while the AF project implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme has taken a single-sector approach that emphasizes ecosystem-based adaptation, allowing for wider responsibility and discretion by the Cambodian Ministry of Environment and creating a space in which the project can align with its sectoral strategy and take a bottom-up approach. Second, impact drivers such as the financial sustainability of communities located near community protected areas (CPA) and the ability of local officers to understand the protocol have been insufficiently realized in the AF project. Communities tend toward maladaptation unless the project can show them visible signs of financially sustainable ecosystem based adaptation. More fundamentally, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) must create an institutional environment that enables an integrative adaptive approach to work effectively.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted this year to address unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and newly added sustainable development issues. Some of the SDGs target improvements in previously untouched areas such as sustainable consumption and production (SCP) and sustainable cities. Other SDGs, however, will aim to strengthen measures against issues already covered under the MDGs as well as other multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Not only is biodiversity covered under the MDGs, it is also covered by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Aichi Targets. Some have argued that including biodiversity under the SDGs is unnecessary duplication which could ultimately confuse the implementation of both the SDGs and other relevant MEAs, especially the CBD and the Aichi Targets. This fear is based on evidence from discussions among UN Member States on how to design SDGs and targets on biodiversity and ensure consistency with existing ones. While this paper fully agrees with the need for consistency, especially with the CBD and the Aichi Targets, which already have functioning reporting mechanisms, it argues that the rapid decline in biodiversity necessitates an integrated approach with other goal areas as well as the elevated status and heightened awareness of issues that the SDGs could potentially deliver. Drawing upon examples of the transposition of the CBD and the Aichi Targets in Japan, this paper argues the SGDs have added value and complementarity to the existing legal instruments in international efforts to conserve biodiversity.