Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Are we successful in turning trade-offs into synergies?
Open accessAbstract
The Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides the framework that all United Nations (UN) member states have pledged to fulfill. The achievement of this agenda crucially depends on whether humankind will be able to maximize synergies and resolve existing trade-offs between the SDGs. We provide the first analysis of future interactions for projected SDG trends until 2030 within and between goals, and we analyze how trade-offs and synergies have evolved in the recent past globally. For certain goals, we find positive developments with notable synergies in our projections, especially for SDGs 1, 3, 7, 8, and 9: Poverty alleviation and strengthening the economy, rooted in innovation, and modern infrastructure, therefore continue to be the basis upon which many of the other SDGs can be achieved. However, especially SDGs 11, 13, 14, 16, and 17 will continue to have notable trade-offs, as well as non-associations with the other goals in the future, which emphasizes the need to foster innovations and policies that can make our cities and communities more sustainable, as well as strengthen institutions and spur climate action. We show examples of a successful transformation of trade-offs into synergies that should be emulated in other areas to create a virtuous cycle of SDG progress. The alarming inability to overcome certain persistent trade-offs we have found, and indeed the deterioration for some SDGs, can seriously threaten the achievement of the Agenda 2030.
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The relationship between different types of sustainability may evolve as projects mature.
“For instance, the relationship between different types of sustainability may evolve as projects mature (Kroll et al., 2019).”
From The sustainability of open source commons (2023) · cites this paper as Kroll et al., 2019
The ‘Interactions within SDGs’ section (page unavailable) reports that synergies and trade-offs among sustainability goals changed over 2010–2018, supporting the general idea that such relationships can evolve. The paper examines SDGs across countries, however, not how relationships change as individual projects mature. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- Kroll, C., Warchold, A., & Pradhan, P.
- Affiliations
- Leibniz Association (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Kroll, Christian
- Venue
- Palgrave Communications
- Published
- 2019-11-12
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2055-1045 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2984471777
- Cited by
- 669
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 65 · 2025: 96 · 2024: 143 · 2023: 116 · 2022: 135 · 2021: 81 · 2020: 33
- FWCI
- 125.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- RENATE (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RENATE (cc-by)
- Funders
- European Commission (730459, HORIZON2020)
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (01DP17035)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Human Rights and Development
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Global socioeconomic and cultural dynamics
- Keywords
- Sustainable Development Goals, SDG trade-offs, SDG synergies, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, poverty reduction, urban sustainability, climate action, institutional capacity building, innovation, SDG 11
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