Integrative Sustainable Development Goal policy portfolios to accelerate global progress towards a more sustainable future: a modelling study

Yang, J., Gao, L., Guo, Z., Dong, Y., Moallemi, E.A., Eker, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-132X, Liu, Q., Chi, Z., Liu, F., Obersteiner, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6981-2769, & Bryan, B.A. (2025). Integrative Sustainable Development Goal policy portfolios to accelerate global progress towards a more sustainable future: a modelling study. The Lancet Planetary Health e101318. 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101318. (In Press)

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Abstract

Background: Progress towards the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is far off track. An effective and comprehensive assessment of policy impacts on the SDGs is crucial for accelerating global progress towards their achievement. We aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of progress towards ten SDGs under future deep uncertainties and identify the most effective policy portfolios that best achieve these SDGs simultaneously.

Methods: In this study, we used an integrative modelling approach to capture important aspects of the complex behaviours of the global environmental and socioeconomic system. The study was conducted based on the functional enviro-economic linkages integrated nexus model, which is a system dynamics model that simulates interdependencies among global social, economic, and environmental components across 12 sectoral modules, including population, education, economy, poverty, energy, land use, water, food and diet change, fertiliser use, climate, carbon cycle, and biodiversity. The model was constructed with historical data from 1950 to 2021, sourced primarily from official international organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, the UN Development Programme, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We used 32 SDG assessment indicators to quantify the impacts of 6480 policy portfolios from seven policy clusters interactively on ten SDGs up until 2050. We then used a multiobjective sorting and ranking method to identify robust policy portfolios that most effectively accelerate progress towards the ten SDGs simultaneously across five future socioeconomic pathways.

Findings: Although single-sector policies can boost progress towards the SDGs, multisectoral policy portfolios consisting of complementary policies from different sectors are required to achieve societal, economic, and environmental goals, and to capitalise on synergies and minimise undesirable trade-offs amongst SDGs. The policy portfolios play a more important role than more general socioeconomic development pathways in accelerating progress towards the SDGs. Two robust policy portfolios composed of seven policies, including ambitious education, energy supply decarbonisation, crop yield increase, sustainable water use, high nitrogen use efficiency, healthy and sustainable dietary change, and climate change mitigation with careful consideration of ecosystem impacts, were the most effective for global sustainable transformations regardless of future uncertainties, effecting up to a 19·6% to 29·5% improvement in overall progress towards the ten SDGs by 2050 compared with a reference policy portfolio without additional policies taken.

Interpretation: Greater progress towards multiple SDGs can be made through more ambitious policies and their more integrated implementation. Our robust policy portfolios provide general transformation directions for the international community to take coordinated and coherent actions to accelerate progress towards the SDGs.

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