Essential Concepts for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals

This book provides a highly accessible and user-friendly overview of the essential concepts and terms related to the current global endeavour to implement the Sustainable Development Goals.

With the first decade of the 15-year timespan of the 2030 Agenda now past, the SDGs show limited progress and several goals are even regressing. It is imperative that SDG implementation is accelerated until 2030 and beyond to foster transformations and set the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. The book starts with a thematic introduction to contextualize the topic and set the stage for the individual entries. It then follows an A-Z format, with over 100 entries which describe an important concept or term, using practical examples to illustrate how it connects to the overall debate about sustainable development. It offers swift introductions to key concepts and terms that are discussed and explained by scholarly and policy experts from around the world in a concise and user-friendly way.

The guide is comprehensive in scope, practically oriented and focused on political and societal processes to drive change on a larger scale. With cross-references to related terms in the entries, this book will be a highly valuable resource for students and practitioners engaged with the SDGs and sustainable development more broadly.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Licence 4.0 International (CC- BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 International license.

Frank Biermann is Professor of Global Sustainability Governance at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and the 2025 Zennström Visiting Professor in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Thomas Hickmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. He is highly committed to interdisciplinary collaborations, research-based education and engagements with civil society to identify pathways towards sustainability transformations.

Yi hyun Kang is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. Her research explores the role of civil society and technology in environmental politics and governance. Her research interests have been shaped by professional experiences in journalism, international development, and applied research.

Carole-Anne Sénit is Assistant Professor of Inclusive Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. The corpus of her research assesses the democratic legitimacy of sustainability governance, with a particular attention to whether and how citizens can take part in and influence the decisions that affect their lives.

Yixian Sun is Associate Professor in International Development and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. He studies transnational governance, environmental politics and sustainable development with a focus on emerging economies.