Biosphere-based sustainability in local governments: Sustainable development goal interactions and indicators for policymaking

Abstract

Knowledge on sustainable development goals (SDGs) interactions has a bias toward global perspectives and lacks regional or country-specific differentiation. This paper takes a biosphere-based sustainability approach and assesses SDG interactions in a local governmental context. We start by addressing how the SDGs promote a biosphere-based sustainability. Here, we find a range of opinions and we settle on a set of SDGs. Second, we explore how a set of sustainability indicators are connected to the SDGs and biosphere-based sustainability. We conduct a case study and develop an SDG interaction model, and further compare global and local level interactions. We find that the local level has some differences compared to global level findings. However, the distribution among synergies and trade-offs was found to be quite coherent. Our SDG interaction model connects sectors both within a single government and between governmental levels and can as such facilitate policy coherence. The main contribution of this study is our unique approach of conducting a local level assessment which aligns an existing sustainability measurement system with interaction research.