Already before the pandemic, the EU was facing difficulties in implementing the 2030 Agenda. Recovery measures to address the pandemic’s short- and medium-term socio-economic consequences will determine whether the EU moves towards a sustainable development model by 2030 or locks in unsustainable pathways instead.

The Europe Sustainable Development Report 2020 is the second edition of our independent quantitative report on the progress of the European Union and its member states towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report was prepared by teams of independent experts at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP).

SDSN and the GIZ program joined forces to contribute to a better understanding of the linkages between social spillover effects and related SDG targets in the textile industry, and to move the subject more strongly into political focus.

The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition, in partnership with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment  and the Santa Chiara Lab—University of Siena, are joining forces to help the agro-food sector accelerate progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

Soy is a major driver of deforestation, but it accounts for 47 per cent of the EU’s imported deforestation from agricultural and livestock commodities. Based on an analysis of relevant stakeholders and policy instruments, we have developed a number of policy recommendations for the EU and Germany on how to address negative impacts of soy production, processing and trade.

SDSN and the Institute for European Environmental Policy publish the first independent quantitative report on the progress of the EU and its member states towards Sustainable Development Goals. As the European Commission prepares the European Green Deal, the 2019 Europe Sustainable Development Report sheds a holistic light on the key economic, social and environmental challenges faced by the EU in their progress towards SDGs.

This Report provides an overview of the performance of 45 capital cities and large metropolitan areas on the Agenda 2030 and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Report builds on previous work conducted by SDSN to monitor the SDGs at national and subnational levels and on TELOS' study “Sustainability Monitoring of European Citiies" co-prepared with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment.

The Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change call for deep transformations in every country that require complementary actions by governments, civil society, science, and business. Yet stakeholders lack a shared understanding of how the 17 SDGs can be operationalized. We introduce here six SDG Transformations as modular building-blocks of SDG achievement.

The study highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the current official monitoring of the SDGs conducted by the European Commission via Eurostat and makes 4 recommendations to the EESC to strengthen the involvement of civil society organizations in the measurement and implementation of the SDGs.