The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and among other measures, it produced a set of documents at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2012. In 2015, the UN General Assembly approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.
There are to date no comprehensive publications addressing the SDGs in an integrated way. Therefore, the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is being published. It encompasses 17 volumes, each devoted to one of the 17 SDGs.