Distilling the role of ecosystem services in the Sustainable Development Goals

Achieving well-being for all, while protecting the environment, is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time, and a central idea in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We believe that integrating ecosystem services, the benefits nature provides to people, into strategies for meeting the SDGs can help achieve this. Many development goals are likely underpinned by the delivery of one or more ecosystem services. Understanding how these services could support multiple development targets will be essential for planning synergistic and cost-effective interventions. Here we present the results of an expert survey on the contributions of 16 ecosystem services to achieving SDG targets linked to environment and human well-being, and review the capacity of modelling tools to evaluate SDG-relevant ecosystem services interactions. Survey respondents judged that individual ecosystem services could make important contributions to achieving 41 targets across 12 SDGs. The provision of food and water, habitat & biodiversity maintenance, and carbon storage & sequestration were perceived to each make contributions to >14 SDG targets, suggesting cross-target interactions are likely, and may present opportunities for synergistic outcomes across multiple SDGs. Existing modelling tools are well-aligned to support SDG-relevant ecosystem service planning. Together, this work identifies entry points and tools to further analyze the role of ecosystem services to support the SDGs

Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals still neglecting their environmental roots in the Anthropocene

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; promulgated in 2015), officially known as "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development", are an intergovernmental set of 17 goals and 169 constituent targets that succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs; 2000-2015). Despite a clear mandate to integrate social, economic and environmental objectives in the SDGs, ecosystem health remains underrepresented in this latest iteration of the United Nation's global development agenda. We submit that maintaining ecosystem health (Goal 14: life below water and Goal 15: life on land) is a necessary precondition to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Here, we present a reconceptualized SDG framework akin to a tree that places Healthy Ecosystems as the roots for five branches of development (Clean Energy, Water Security, Food Security, Lives and Livelihoods, Governing for Sustainability). As universal examples, we put forward the vital role of life below fresh water for ending poverty by 2030 (Goal 1: no poverty) and describe how children's environmental health is the foundation for the major health priorities of reproductive, maternal and child health (Goal 3: good health and well-being). This framework provides insight and evidence for policymakers and the public to be cognizant that prioritizing ecosystem health goals can serve human development objectives which we deem as key to realizing the unified plan of action for people, planet and prosperity

Evaluating agricultural trade-offs in the age of sustainable development

A vibrant, resilient and productive agricultural sector is fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Bringing about such a transformation requires optimizing a range of agronomic, environmental and socioeconomic outcomes from agricultural systems – from crop yields, to biodiversity, to human nutrition. However, these outcomes are not independent of each other – they interact in both positive and negativeways, creating the potential for synergies and trade-offs. Consequently, transforming the agricultural sector for the age of sustainable development requires tracking these interactions, assessing if objectives are being achieved and allowing for adaptivemanagement within the diverse agricultural systems that make up global agriculture. This paper reviews the field of agricultural trade-off analysis, which has emerged to better understand these interactions – fromfield to farm, region to continent. Taking a “cradle-to-grave” approach,we distill agricultural trade-off analysis into four steps: 1) characterizing the decision setting and identifying the context-specific indicators needed to assess agricultural sustainability, 2) selecting the methods for generating indicator values across different scales, 3) deciding on the means of evaluating and communicating the trade-off options with stakeholders and decision-makers, and 4) improving uptake of trade-off analysis outputs by decision-makers. Given the breadth of the Sustainable Development Goals and the importance of agriculture to many of them, we assess notions of human well-being beyond income or direct health concerns (e.g. related to gender, equality, nutrition), as well as diverse environmental indicators ranging from soil health to biodiversity to climate forcing. Looking forward, areas of future work include integrating the four steps into a single modeling platform and connecting tools across scales and disciplines to facilitate trade-off analysis. Likewise, enhancing the policy relevance of agricultural trade-off analysis requires improving scientist-stakeholder engagement in the research process. Only then can this field proactively address trade-off issues that are integral to sustainably intensifying local and global agriculture – a critical step toward successfully implementing the Sustainable Development Goals

Distilling the role of ecosystem services in the Sustainable Development Goals

Achieving well-being for all, while protecting the environment, is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time, and a central idea in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We believe that integrating ecosystem services, the benefits nature provides to people, into strategies for meeting the SDGs can help achieve this. Many development goals are likely underpinned by the delivery of one or more ecosystem services. Understanding how these services could support multiple development targets will be essential for planning synergistic and cost-effective interventions. Here we present the results of an expert survey on the contributions of 16 ecosystem services to achieving SDG targets linked to environment and human well-being, and review the capacity of modelling tools to evaluate SDG-relevant ecosystem services interactions. Survey respondents judged that individual ecosystem services could make important contributions to achieving 41 targets across 12 SDGs. The provision of food and water, habitat & biodiversity maintenance, and carbon storage & sequestration were perceived to each make contributions to >14 SDG targets, suggesting cross-target interactions are likely, and may present opportunities for synergistic outcomes across multiple SDGs. Existing modelling tools are well-aligned to support SDG-relevant ecosystem service planning. Together, this work identifies entry points and tools to further analyze the role of ecosystem services to support the SDGs

Systems thinking: an approach for understanding ‘eco-agri-food systems’

Chapter 2 makes the case for using systems thinking as a guiding perspective for TEEBAgriFood’s development of a comprehensive Evaluation Framework for the eco-agri-food system. Many dimensions of the eco-agri-food system create complex analytical and policy challenges. Systems thinking allows better understanding and forecasting the outcomes of policy decisions by illuminating how the components of a system are interconnected with one another and how the drivers of change are determined and impacted by feedback loops, delays and non-linear relationships. To establish the building blocks of a theory of change, systems thinking empowers us to move beyond technical analysis and decisiontool toward more integrated approaches that can aid in the forming of a common ground for cultural changes