The first European Sustainable Development Report is launched

The 2019 Europe Sustainable Development Report: “Towards a strategy for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the European Union”, has just been launched. Denmark, Sweden and Finland are in the Top Three in the updated index list.

– This is an excellent report, describing the SDG implementation status as well as outlining strategies for how the EU countries should reach the SDGs, says Martin Eriksson, Network Manager for SDSN Northern Europe.

The interactive SDG dashboards for the report are important resources where countries or SDGs can be selected and analysed for the International Spillover Index or the brand new Leave-No-One-Behind Index.

Compared to the global SDG Index, this EU SDG Index is based on much richer and more timely data.

Martin Eriksson suggests that the Northern Europe members should make use of this report and its recommendations.

– The material in the report and on the website offers a fantastic resource to further promote the SDG implementation in our respective countries as well as in the EU. Although Norway and Iceland are not EU member states, many of the findings and general recommendations in this report apply equally well to these countries.

A few interesting examples are worth mentioning:

• Denmark, Sweden and Finland are the top three index member states in the EU. Still, no member state is on track to achieve the SDGs.
• In the new Leave-No-One-Behind Index, Finland, Denmark and Sweden are among the top four member states.
• Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki performs the best (>70%) of all capitols in the EU, and Copenhagen together with Zurich performs good (65-70%).
• Finland, Denmark and Sweden do not perform well in the Spillover Index, and in terms of the biodiversity threats embodied in their imports, Sweden and Denmark have major challenges remaining

– Also, when reading the report I note that the policy recommendations to the Finnish EU Presidency from the Beyond Growth Conference overlaps with the 2019 Europe Sustainable Development Report, which makes these two documents even stronger, finishes Martin Eriksson.

> Link to the 2019 Europe Sustainable Development Report

> Link to the Beyond Growth Policy Recommendations