Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is also an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The current model of economic growth used by many countries is heavily based on the exploitation of natural resources, which is not viable. Evidence shows that a more careful, i.e. a more sustainable approach to the use of our limited resources, is needed.

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.