offers a more coordinated, effective and efficient SDG monitoring system.•Criteria of system
essence, transformations, coordination priorities, and indispensability guide the
identification of Essential Variables.•A conceptual model of global sustainable development
should draw together diverse disciplines, models and monitoring efforts.•Interdisciplinary
system models, sustainable development transformations, and policy interactions and gaps …
Highlights
- Defining Essential Variables for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offers a more coordinated, effective and efficient SDG monitoring system.
- Criteria of system essence, transformations, coordination priorities, and indispensability guide the identification of Essential Variables.
- A conceptual model of global sustainable development should draw together diverse disciplines, models and monitoring efforts.
- Interdisciplinary system models, sustainable development transformations, and policy interactions and gaps, emerge as research priorities.
The imperative to measure progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has resulted in a proliferation of targets and indicators fed by an ever-expanding set of observations. This proliferation undermines one principal purpose of the SDGs: to provide a framework for coordinated action across policy domains. Systems approaches to defining Essential Variables have focused monitoring of climate, biodiversity and oceans and offer opportunities to coordinate SDG monitoring. We propose four criteria and a process to identify Essential SDG Variables (ESDGVs), which will highlight interactions and gaps in current monitoring. The ESDGV criteria suggest a research agenda to: develop and test interdisciplinary system models; test transformations theory for sustainable development; analyse policy interactions; and formulate models to support further refinements of ESDGVs and SDG monitoring.