Governance for the Sustainable Development Goals: Exploring an Integrative Framework of Theories, Tools, and Competencies

By Joachim Monkelbaan

This book provides a detailed overview of governance for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopting a unique integrative approach, it examines the fragmentation of governance that is a critical barrier to achieving the SDGs. The main question addressed is: What are the crucial elements and the organizing logic of an integrative framework that is suitable for analysing governance for the SDGs and for implementing the transitions that we need towards a more sustainable world?
This transdisciplinary book first proposes a combination of innovative governance theories that can improve the analysis and practice of sustainability governance. Secondly, it explores the interests of core actors in a number of case examples. And thirdly, it offers recommendations for improving the study and practice of sustainability governance.
The findings presented form the basis for a new approach to governance towards objectives such as the SDGs:Integrative Sustainability Governance (ISG). The ensuing ISG framework includes indicator frames within the pillars of power, knowledge and norms. The book concludes that the transformation of crisis into sustainability transitions requires a deeper consideration of risk management that strengthens resilience; systems deliberation that complements democracy; and behavioral insights that elevate human awareness and collaboration. This handbook is a comprehensive and valuable companion for students, experts and practitioners with an interest in the SDGs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: May 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9789811304750

Book preview

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

Joachim MonkelbaanGovernance for the Sustainable Development GoalsSustainable Development Goals Serieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0475-0_1

1. Introduction: Objectives, Substantive Issues and Structure of This Book

Joachim Monkelbaan¹ 

(1)

University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Abstract

This first chapter takes off by explaining the objectives of this book on governance for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It explains what the SDGs are and how they came into being. Then, the chapter sets out the opportunities and challenges that are linked with the SDGs and in particular with SDG 6 on sustainable energy and SDG 13 on climate change. The chapter also gives a definition of the key term global change, sustainable development and governance. Finally, it lays out the structure of this book.

Keywords

Sustainable Development GoalsClimate changeGlobal changeSustainable developmentGovernance

1.1 Positioning Ourselves: The Objectives of This Book

We have arrived at a critical juncture when it comes to governance for sustainable development. Policymakers have been crafting the 2030 Development Agenda including a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, also called the ‘Global Goals’), The Paris Climate Agreement and numerous related initiatives around the world. These initiatives will determine the direction of governance efforts for many years to come. At the same time, good governance¹ has been called ‘the Pandora’s box of the SDGs’.² This book is an attempt to unpack this box and investigate ways for governing sustainability initiatives more effectively,³ equitably,⁴ and coherently.

Within the area of governance for the SDG, there appears to be a need for perspectives on forms of governance that are fit for working towards improved sustainability in complex, dynamic and interdependent societies. This book aspires to take some meaningful steps towards identifying and understanding such forms of governance while simultaneously embedding the findings in accepted theory and practice.

This book is based on the premise that a global, ‘world-embracing’ vision on sustainability challenges such as climate change is required at all levels of governance. There is a clear need for dealing with climate change, poverty, environmental degradation and other global challenges in an integrated manner. (Davis et al. 2013; WEF 2015) At the same time, traditional global governance⁵ is said to be in decline (Patrick and Bennett 2015) and the liberal world order that has been built up since the Second World War is being questioned (Nye 2017; Niblett 2017). Governance that addresses global challenges and contributes to achieving the SDGs therefore requires innovative shifts in thinking and acting.

Objectives of This Book

Within this context, the overall objective of this book is to contribute to the field of sustainability science⁶ by proposing an integrative framework for the governance of transitions related to the SDGs. Sustainability science is based on transdisciplinary⁷ research on complex human–environment systems. Sustainability science and this research are inspired both by considerations of use and by the quest for fundamental understanding. Sustainability science therefore can be placed in the quadrant of ‘use-inspired research’ in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1

Research characterised by the motivations that inspire it

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Source Clark (2007)

This book aims to foster understanding of sustainability governance based on the systemic interactions between different foundational governance concepts and theories. The insights gained feed into the construction of the Integrative Sustainability Governance (ISG) framework. The ISG framework is original for several reasons. First, the framework comprises an unprecedented number and diversity of governance theories. Second, it has a unique transdisciplinary outlook that includes public administration, international relations, political science and management. Third, the research is based on case studies that have not been the subject of academic analysis together previously (in Chap. 4). In addition, this book aims to make a significant contribution to the analysis and practice of sustainability governance as it is based on my work experience on cross-cutting global sustainability challenges that are enshrined in the SDGs. In addition, the book offers intimate insights from high-level decision-makers and other stakeholders that I captured through interviews. As the concluding Chap. 7 demonstrates, the findings are meant to form a starting point for sustainability governance into the future.

At the same time, the social sciences consistently conclude that there is no single governance model that works across all contexts (Ostrom et al. 2007). As such, this book intends to offer a structured framework in which different contexts and dimensions of sustainability governance can be understood and acted upon. By linking the envisioned framework and its constituent parts to both extant academic literature and the governance of sustainability transitions in practice, this book aims to comment on wider transformations⁸ towards sustainability within the context of the SDGs.

The central contributions that this book aims to make are:

(1)

To clarify the phenomenon of sustainability governance and contribute to an improved understanding of how governance can be more effective to achieve the SDGs;

(2)

To demonstrate how SDG 16 on the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies and inclusive institutions⁹ and SDG 17 on a global partnership for sustainable development¹⁰ can be implemented in practice;

(3)

To explain and develop dynamics, principles and mechanisms of the governance of sustainability transitions, for example through identifying cross-cutting themes in governance and drawing inferences; and

(4)

To discover new directions for improving sustainability governance through a more comprehensive understanding of the drivers and barriers to realizing the SDGs.

As such, this book is meant to gather and deepen understanding of the opportunities that exist for making governance for the SDGs more effective, equitable and coherent. This book does not aim to come up with a conclusive, all-encompassing theory or definitive solutions for sustainability governance. Instead, this book aims to come up with a framework that represents significant and original contributions to understanding governance for the SDGs and that is based on key governance theories and insights from governance practice.

The first section of this introductory chapter provides an overview of the substantive aspects of the SDGs and climate change. Then, it defines the concept of global change and two of the most contested terms in the entire social sciences (Jordan 2008): ‘sustainable development’ and ‘governance’. Finally, this chapter explains the main approaches taken in this book and gives an overview of the book’s structure.

1.2 Substantive Issues: The Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement

1.2.1 The Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in September 2015.¹¹ The SDGs are set to determine the global development agenda for the coming decades and thus deserve the attention of all stakeholders involved in (sustainable) development.

The SDGs or ‘Global Goals’ are a follow-up of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, there are significant differences between the MDGs and the SDGs: the SDG agenda is more comprehensive (especially in terms of its environmental dimension) and is universal (all countries committed to achieving it). The SDGs are also much more integrated; the linkages between different goals and targets are both implicit and explicit. For example, some targets relating to thematic areas such as health are not only listed under their namesake Goal (SDG 3 on healthy lives and well-being), but across other goals as well (e.g. Goals 2, 6, 11 and 12). The SDGs are in fact so integrated that they could be seen as a ‘network of targets’ (Le Blanc 2015: 3). This opens perspectives for cross-sectoral, integrated and more effective implementation in the longer term. At the same time, the size and breadth of the SDGs present new challenges for governments and other development actors. One argument that critics bring up to demonstrate the weakness of SDGs is that environmental issues are so closely integrated with social and economic issues in the SDGs that there are no ‘hard’ indicators for environmental targets.

The SDGs have an interesting and unique history in terms of the negotiations in which they were shaped. The idea for SDGs as a follow-up to the MDGs was launched by the Colombian delegation at an informal intergovernmental meeting in May 2011. Colombia gained the support of Guatemala, Peru, and the United Arab Emirates. Civil society quickly picked up the idea and proposed 17 specific SDGs in the Declaration of the 64th Annual UN DPI/NGO Conference in Solo (Indonesia).¹² The Rio + 20 outcome document, The Future We Want,¹³ in 2012 gave the mandate for an Open Working Group (OWG) to shape the SDGs through an inclusive and transparent process that is open to all stakeholders. The 30 seats in the OWG were shared by 70 countries. This seat-sharing arrangement led to the breakdown of traditional coalitions that had made previous sustainable development negotiations intractable. Also, the OWG was a more technical group rather than a typical UN negotiating forum. There was a high level of leadership in the OWG in the sense of crafting proposals, imagining institutional options and brokering the interests of numerous actors to line up in support for the proposed actions. This type of leadership, together with a high level of openness, transparency, ownership and participation turned initial mistrust into trust and a high level of cohesion, common sense of purpose, shared understanding and receptiveness to new ideas along the negotiations.

The SDGs provide an opportunity for all stakeholders to establish commitments and express their preferences and interests on a broad set of issues under discussion. The formation of SDGs could help to:

1.

form and coordinate the interests of different stakeholders across issues;

2.

mobilize collective action based on a shared vision and metanarrative on development and sustainability; and

3.

help create shared global understanding about the issues and problems at hand.

1.2.2 Climate Change

Within the main focus on the SDGs, this book mainly covers the strongly interlinked areas of climate change (SDG 13) and sustainable energy (SDG 7). The Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 united almost all the world’s nations in a single agreement on tackling climate change for the first time in history. A key objective of the Paris Climate Agreement is to keep global temperatures ‘well below’ 2.0C above pre-industrial times and ‘endeavour to limit’ them even more, to 1.5C. The Agreement is based on countries’ voluntary actions (Nationally Determined Contributions or ‘NDCs’) which each country reviews every 5 years so that they can scale up their efforts. The Paris Climate Agreement is widely hailed as a success of multilateral diplomacy. However, more critical voices say that the Paris Climate Agreement has undermined environmental law as it contains no commitments or obligations but only voluntarily determined ‘contributions’.

There is a linkage between the Paris Climate Agreement and the SDGs, because SDG 13 undertakes to ‘take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’. Also, there are significant linkages and synergies between national climate plans and the SDGs¹⁴ (TERI 2017). Climate change and sustainable energy are used in this book frequently as examples of areas where sustainability governance is crucial for the following reasons:

First, carbon dioxide emissions from power generation, transport, households, and industry play a dominant role in humanity’s ecological footprint (WWF 2012). Climate change is one of the ‘planetary boundaries’¹⁵ that have been trespassed (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015). Thus, addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions provides a crucial opportunity for increasing the chances of sustaining the planet’s biocapacity.

Secondly, besides environmental effects, climate change can have severe economic¹⁶ and sociopolitical¹⁷ impacts. Because of the numerous linkages between climate change and (sustainable) energy, taking action on climate change inevitably will impact the ways in which we use energy and organize our industries. Beyond industry, energy use is connected to many other issues that humans rely on, such as food production and water distribution and use (the ‘water–energy–food nexus’¹⁸; also, see case study 3 in Sect. 4.​3). In fact, Project Drawdown, which ranks the 100 most promising options for cutting emissions, demonstrates that agriculture and land use change offer at least as many opportunities for mitigating climate change as the energy sector (Hawken 2017). However, transitioning to more sustainable forms of energy can deliver significant benefits in terms of economic growth, job creation, limitation of the damage from climate change and health improvement (OECD 2017).

Third, climate change is often ranked as the most ‘global’ and morally challenging¹⁹ of all sustainability problems, calling for clearer understandings of the role and shape of effective and equitable governance from a global perspective. At the same time, climate change and sustainable energy are suitable subjects for global governance and international cooperation because they continue to be seen as less strategic for many governments than, for example, national security and defence. Therefore, they make an excellent object for cooperation between countries and can be stepping stones for cooperation in other areas.

The fourth reason to focus on these issues is that I have worked for more than a decade at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), the European Commission, Climate-KIC and several other institutions on the linkages between climate change, sustainable energy, innovation and trade. This book therefore enables me to critically assess my own observations and ideas, to draw on my network for interviews, and to base my research approach on my daily work with governance actors.

Fifth, despite a flurry of initiatives in the area of climate change and sustainable energy, coordinated governance approaches have been either non-existent or ineffective. One reason for this ineffectiveness is that different pathways that are proposed for energy transitions²⁰ by heterogeneous actors are often mutually exclusive (Verbong and Loorbach 2012) and have made fragmentation a common phenomenon in energy and climate change governance.²¹ Another reason is that ‘energy is more than a sector, policy or field; it is instead a cross-cutting issue area that envelops a distinct set of governance challenges’ and that ‘energy is, among all policy fields exhibiting externalities of a global scale, by far the most complex, path dependent, and embedded one’ (Goldthau and Sovacool 2012: 232).²²

Sixth, surveys among thousands of experts show that climate action plays a primary role in the SDG framework, as Fig. 1.1 and Table 1.2 illustrate.

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Fig. 1.1

Most important SDGs for society to focus on to achieve the most progress (% of experts). Based on the question Which of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do you think are the most important for society to focus on to achieve the most progress toward sustainable development? (Source GlobeScan/SustainAbility 2017)

Table 1.2

Most important SDGs for society to focus on to achieve the most progress (% of experts), priorities by sector and by region

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Based on: GlobeScan/SustainAbility (2017)

Seventh, it is important to focus on climate change within the context of the SDGs because the period during which the SDGs are set to be achieved (until 2030) will be crucial for avoiding catastrophic climate change. The window of opportunity for avoiding such run-away climate change is indeed closing rapidly. There is an acute need for lowering GHG emissions because delaying climate action by 2030 would increase costs of decarbonization by 50% compared with immediate action (World Bank 2015). Global GHG emissions should peak by 2020 and go down rapidly after that in order to have any reasonable chance of avoiding a rise in global temperatures of more than 2 degrees Celsius that was agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement. This point is further explained in case study 1 in Chap. 4.

These seven elements make sustainable energy and climate change suitable arenas for developing integrative²³ modes of governance. Climate and sustainable energy governance have local, national, regional and global aspects, are driven by both public and private sector action and affect geographical, temporal and jurisdictional governance scales. Altogether, this can raise insights into multilevel, multisectoral and multiactor governance.

This is not to derogate from other sustainability challenges that are covered by the SDGs, such as poverty²⁴ and inequality,²⁵ hunger, loss of biodiversity, habitat destruction, waste, depletion of fish stocks, air and water pollution, top soil erosion,²⁶ deforestation and desertification, rising food prices, resource and water scarcity (Steffen et al. 2004; MEA 2005; WEF 2015), socio-economic imbalances (Jackson 2009), public health challenges, conflict, decreasing social trust and social capital (Putnam 1995) and institutional failure (Scharmer 2007).²⁷

In 2017, indeed more than 15,000 scientists endorsed an article by Ripple et al. (2017) which says that human well-being will be severely jeopardized by negative trends in some types of environmental harm, such as a changing climate, deforestation, loss of access to fresh water, species extinctions and human population growth. At the same time, positive changes can be made in other areas—such as a reduction in ozone-depleting chemicals and an increase in energy generated from renewable sources. There has been a rapid decline in fertility rates in some regions, which can be attributed to investments in education for women. The rate of deforestation in some regions has also slowed.

Among the negative 25-year global trends noted by Ripple et al. (2017) are:

A 26% reduction in the amount of fresh water available per capita;

A drop in the harvest of wild-caught fish, despite an increase in fishing effort;

A 75% increase in the number of ocean dead zones;

A loss of nearly 300 million acres of forestland, much of it converted for agricultural uses;

Continuing significant increases in global carbon emissions and average temperatures;

A 35% rise in human population;

A collective 29% reduction in the numbers of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish (Ripple et al. 2017).

These challenges are often closely connected both with each other and with climate change and energy issues.²⁸ Case study 1 in Chap. 4 expands further on the substantive challenges and opportunities related to decarbonization.

1.3 The Context for the SDGs: Defining Global Change, Sustainable Development and Governance

1.3.1 Global Change

The term ‘global change’ refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. The Earth system consists of the land, oceans, atmosphere, polar regions, life, the planet’s natural cycles and deep Earth processes (IGBP 2010). These constituent parts impact upon each other. The Earth system includes human society, so global change also refers to large-scale changes in society.²⁹ (ibid.) Because this book looks both into the topic of planetary-scale change (mainly through climate change) and its interactions with human society and governance, the global change perspective is a suitable one for addressing the SDGs. The ideas of global change and planetary boundaries also fit with the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’—a new geological epoch in which humanity is driving global (environmental) change.

1.3.2 Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is an intrinsically complex, normative, subjective, ambiguous and contested notion (Loorbach and Rotmans 2006). The distinction between ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainability’ is that sustainability is commonly understood as a destination or end-state, and sustainable development is a means of getting there.

The most-often quoted definition of ‘sustainable development’³⁰ was coined by the World Commission on Environment and Development (the ‘Brundtland Commission’) in its 1987 report ‘Our Common Future’ as

development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (p. 43)

This definition is

normative (future generations should have the same possibilities—even though future generations do not have a voice and we do not know their needs);

subjective (it requires an assessment of future needs);

ambiguous (it does not specify what human needs are nor what needs to be sustained and how) (Martens and Rotmans 2005); and

not describing what sustainable development is, but what it should result in, which makes it not an actual definition.

These ambiguities of the concept of sustainable development may be one of the reasons for its widespread acceptance because it can be used to cover heterogeneous needs (Baker et al. 1997; Adams 2001).

The question ‘is the term sustainable development sustainable?’ is increasingly coming up. Some analysts argue that sustainable development is inherently contradictory and irreconcilable (Kates et al. 2005) and should be reconsidered or even abandoned (e.g. Richardson 1997: 43) as it no longer adequately serves the implementation aspects of environmental governance (Vinuales 2013). McDonough and Braungart (2010) earlier argued that ‘sustainable development’ has helped to make things ‘less bad’ but not to do the ‘right things’. For Loorbach (2014), the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability are ‘part of the problem’ and contribute to the lock-in of inherently unsustainable social arrangements as thinking in terms of ‘sustainability’ and ‘problem-solving’ contributes to visions of optimizing and sustaining these prevailing arrangements. Others have suggested that sustainability is not aspirational and that instead we need to focus on broader conceptualizations of human well-being and prosperity as the ultimate goal of sustainable development. A focus on human well-being eventually should also take the social, economic and environmental factors into account that true prosperity depends on.³¹

This book posits the following working definition of global sustainable development, which is active and acknowledges that sustainability is not an end point to be reached, but a process that requires constant maintenance (Fig. 1.2):

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Fig. 1.2

The word sustainable is unsustainable. Source XKCD 2017

sustainable development is a continuous and collective effort for bringing the advancement of human prosperity and well-being in lasting balance with planetary support systems.

There is further criticism on the generally accepted understanding of sustainable development which is based on the supposedly separate existence of environmental, economic and social ‘pillars’ or dimensions which only partly overlap (Fig. 1.3).

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Fig. 1.3

Sustainability as the overlap of social, economic and environmental dimensions

According to Mebratu (1998), this model suggests that environmental, social and economic systems are independent and can be treated as such (reductionism) and within the zone where the three systems interact sustainability can be achieved, whereas outside of it, there is a zone of contradiction (bivalence). Instead, Mebratu proposes a model (Fig. 1.4) of sustainable development³² which is based on the understanding that the economic and social cosmos are dependent on the (a) biotic cosmos³³.

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Fig. 1.4

Mebratu’s model of the different dimensions of sustainability

Figure 1.5 is one attempt to logically organize the seventeen SDGs based on Mebratu’s concentric model of the three dimensions (economic, social, and environmental or ‘biosphere’) of sustainable development. It should be noted that in the case of the SDGs, assigning goals to separate dimensions (however, much interlinked they are) can be rather arbitrary. For example, SDG 7 (sustainable energy) is listed under the society and SDG 13 (climate change) under the biosphere dimension of Fig. 1.5. But as this book demonstrates, SDGs 7 and 13 have important links with all three dimensions.

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Fig. 1.5

Author’s arrangement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) based on Mebratu’s model of sustainable development. (Stockholm Resilience Centre 2016)

The SDGs are an example of a process that is focused exactly on wicked problems related to sustainability and poverty, with pre-defined objectives and measures that indicate success. The process through which the SDGs were conceptualized was partly the result of a deliberative process (more than one million people gave their feedback on the SDGs through surveys) and constituted the largest consultative effort ever from the UN.

1.3.3 Governance: Definition and Role in the 2030 Agenda

Sustainable development is above all about governance—Meadowcroft (2012)

This quotation from Meadowcroft and also Hulme’s (2009: 310) insight that ‘the climate crisis is more like a crisis of governance than a crisis of the environment’ show the critical role that governance plays in addressing sustainability and climate change. In a ranking of 21 emerging global environmental issues for the twenty-first century, UNEP’s (2012) Foresight Process indeed ranked ‘Aligning Governance to the Challenges of Global Sustainability’ as the top priority. ‘Governance’ is seen as critical for the realization of sustainable development in general (e.g. Ayre and Callway 2005; European Commission 2009) and is sometimes referred to as ‘the fourth pillar or dimension of sustainable development’ (besides the economic, environmental and social dimensions; also, see Fig. 1.4).

Within political science, the growing interest in ‘governance’ can be linked with efforts to comprehend changing patterns of interaction between state and society. Public administration scholars have turned towards the term governance because the phenomena that they are most interested in are increasingly heterogeneous and defy established categories (Rosenau 1998).

The etymological roots of the word ‘governance’ lie in the Greek verb κυβερνάω [kubernáo], which is identified with navigation and helmsmanship (steering) and was used for the first time in a metaphorical sense by Plato to refer to the steering of human beings. Contemporary governance can be identified with actions as broad as managing, regulating, influencing, informing, envisioning, coordinating, policy-making, facilitating, ordering, decision-making, (setting the parameters for) cooperating and leading.

Scholars have defined governance in many different ways without reaching a consensus on the core elements of this broad concept (Adger and Jordan 2009). According to Young (1994: 15), ‘governance involves the establishment and operation of social institutions (in the sense of rules that serve to define social practices, assign roles, and guide interactions among the occupants of these roles) capable of resolving conflicts, facilitating cooperation, or, more generally, alleviating collective action problems in a world of interdependent actors’. At times, it is challenging to distinguish politics from governance as governance is often closely linked with politics and state relations.³⁴

Governance institutions can determine the relations between actors and enable them to handle rational choice problems (e.g. prisoner’s dilemma and the problem of the commons that play a central role in sustainable development). An institution can be broadly defined as any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation that shapes the behaviour of a set of individuals within a given community.³⁵

Within the plethora of international organizations’ understandings of the term governance, UNDP (2014: 2) argues that ‘governance is broader than institutions and includes relations between state and people. It provides the mechanisms through which collaboration can be generated across sectors’. Paquet (2005: 3) also goes beyond institutions as for him, governance mechanisms and dynamics are ‘the many ways in which (1) individuals and institutions (public, private and civic) manage their collective affairs, (2) diverse interests accommodate and resolve their differences, and (3) these many actors and organizations are involved in a continuing process of formal and informal competition, cooperation and learning’.

Hirsch and Brosius (2013) define governance as ‘processes by which different voices and perspectives are engaged in making hard choices about complex trade-offs’, Similarly, Hufty sees governance as ‘decision-making processes involving collective stakes or both conflictive and cooperative interests’ (2011: 178) and ‘a category of social facts, namely the processes of interaction and decision-making among the actors involved in a collective problem that lead to the creation, reinforcement, or reproduction of social norms and institutions’ (2011b: 405).

The Commission on Global Governance (1995: 3) defines governance as ‘a broad, dynamic, complex process of interactive decision-making that is constantly evolving and responding to changing circumstances’.

In the context of urban transitions, Frantzeskaki et al. (2017) refer to governance as ‘the multifaceted processes whereby persistent societal challenges are recognized, the potential for desirable transitions identified, and the dynamics that might guide and accelerate such a transition are stimulated’.

Although it is not the purpose of this book to give an all-encompassing definition of governance, some main characteristics of governance may be clear from existing definitions: governance is a collective enterprise aimed at solving problems, making decisions and creating opportunities; it can involve institutional, procedural, instrumental and organizational aspects; it is contextual and dynamic as its meaning changes from one policy setting to the other; and it is often closely linked with politics and government, but non-public sectors are increasingly involved.

There are two main linkages between governance and the SDGs, as expressed in Fig. 1.6. On the one hand, governance is crucial for the achievement of all SDGs (Biermann et al. 2017). In other words, governance is a critical ‘means of implementation’ (MoI) for the effective deployment and mobilization of all other means for implementing the SDGs (Arrow 1). On the other hand, improved governance can be seen as a goal that works on the SDGs in itself can reach (Arrow 2), even if some (e.g. Elder et al. 2016) see it more as an essential means to achieve human well-being.

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Fig. 1.6

Linkages between governance and the SDGs. Source The author

Governance is most explicitly addressed in SDG 16 (on ‘Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions’) and SDG 17 (on ‘strengthening the means of implementation and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development’).

Among SDGs 16 and 17, the most relevant targets for governance are:

Target 16.6 ‘develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels’;

Target 16.7 ‘ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels’;

Target 17.14 ‘enhance policy coherence for sustainable development’;

Target 17.16 ‘enhance global partnerships (…) Complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships (…)’.

ICSU (2017) points squarely at SDG 16 and SDG 17 as the two goals that are truly the beating heart of the SDG system: [SDG 16 and 17] are key to turning the potential for synergies into reality (…) For many if not all goals, having in place effective governance systems, institutions, partnerships and intellectual and financial resources is key to an effective, efficient and coherent approach to implementation.

Among SDGs 1–15, the targets referring to governance aspects, or financial or other means of implementation (MoI), are indicated by letters a., b. and c. Examples include:

strengthen the participation of local communities (6.b.);

strengthening development planning (11.a.);

implementing integrated policies and plans (11.b.); and

raising capacities for planning and management (13.b.).

So What is the problem with governance?

While achieving all 17 SDGs is both technologically³⁶ and financially³⁷ feasible, we need to make drastic changes in the ways in which we govern the global commons. The problem is that extant forms of (global) governance are losing momentum and are struggling to address challenges related to unsustainability (Bruyninckx et al. 2012: 248). Long-term unsustainability is growing due to the absence of:

1.

effective governance that goes beyond sustainable development as an optimizing strategy. Sustainability as an optimization strategy fails³⁸ to address the causes of unsustainability at deeper levels and over the long term (Loorbach 2014);

2.

insights into the interplay (dynamics) between governance actors, scales, concepts (such as power, knowledge and norms), levels and styles (Meuleman 2008);

3.

coherent efforts to weaken barriers and strengthen drivers for transition governance, in other words, to provide incentives and motivation for sustainability transitions. (Grubb 2014).

Because generally one or more of these elements are absent in sustainability governance, there is a mismatch between observations in global change and effective, coordinated responses across governance levels and among sectors and actors in society. Subsystems such as water management (SDG 6) may be sustainable in themselves, but they may be sustainable at the expense of other sectors such as the energy subsystem (SDG 7). For example, this can cause problems when not enough water is available for thermal cooling or for hydropower plants or when sea water needs to be desalinated, which is an energy intensive process. Therefore, to make whole societies sustainable, we need integrative ‘system of systems’ approaches. Despite this need for effective, coherent and cooperative governance that mirrors the comprehensive SDGs, regional (e.g. the EU) and global governance processes (e.g. in the WTO and in the UNFCCC) seem to be in crisis. Coherence is lacking horizontally between stakeholders at the same governance level (e.g. states) because leadership roles are not well defined, and vertically, the chains of command between levels of governance for sustainability are often weak. In this context, in extant literature and governance practice, isolated elements of sustainability governance have been analysed, but there have been no or few attempts at identifying integrated, comprehensive frameworks.

Based on the observations and findings above, both research on and the practice of sustainability governance can be seen as fragmented, rigid and ineffective.

1.3.4 Sustainability and Transition Governance: Clarification of Terms

While many movements in support of sustainability are encouraging, what is often lacking is a sense of transformative and effective governance for sustainable development. Governance is crucial though for moving towards sustainability and for remaining sustainable once a state of sustainability is reached.³⁹

This book deploys the specific term ‘governance for the SDGs’ and the more general ‘sustainability governance’ and ‘transition governance’. This book is based on the assumption that the relatively young term ‘Governance for the SDGs’ can benefit from the experience with sustainability governance as they address similar objectives and areas. All the topics in the SDGs already existed beforehand but were never brought together in the comprehensive framework that the SDGs represent.

Sustainability governance has been defined by Meadowcroft (2007: 299) as ‘processes of sociopolitical governance oriented towards the attainment of sustainable development’. It is a goal-oriented activity that seeks to achieve certain (desired) societal outcomes and to avoid other (less promising) social futures. Eventually, sustainable development cannot be expected to be spontaneous social outcomes, but requires ‘goal-directed intervention by governments and other actors’ (Meadowcroft 2007: 302). Sustainability governance is perceived as normative and prescriptive and concerns the tools, methods and instruments that are specifically regarded as useful for sustainable development (Meuleman 2012). The term sustainability governance is generally accepted to be more comprehensive than environmental governance in the sense that it also covers economic and social dimensions. Although sustainable development is the process towards becoming sustainable and sustainability is an envisioned end-state, the term ‘sustainability governance’ here includes both the governance of the process of becoming sustainable and of remaining sustainable, and it is used interchangeably with the terms ‘governance for sustainability’ and ‘governance for sustainable development’.

‘Transition governance’ in turn is supposed to be a more profound form of sustainability governance. Sustainability governance describes mostly existing governance practices, and transition governance represents envisioned forms of effecting change. Whereas sustainability governance often is aspiring towards sustainability through optimizing existing, inherently unsustainable societal structures, transition governance in this research includes the planning and implementation of transformational change at a societal level. Particularly, in the area of climate change and sustainable energy, what is increasingly required is guidance of radical change at the systems level. Both sustainability and transition governance will be required for achieving the SDGs. Bringing the different descriptions in this section together, the definition of Integrative Sustainability Governance in this book is a collective enterprise which aims to address sustainability problems adequately through fostering fundamental change aimed at achieving the SDGs and other visions of sustainability. Chapter 3 further elaborates on the term transition governance and on the theory behind it.

1.4 Structure of This Book

This book is divided into seven chapters. After this introductory chapter, Chap. 2 provides a theoretical background by describing a set of sustainability governance theories. In order to provide a lay of the land of climate and sustainable energy governance, Chap. 3 gives an overview of