Local Implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Europe

Lena Partzsch
Additional contact information
Lena Partzsch: Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Urban Planning, 2025, vol. 10

Abstract: While some scholars see the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an example of environmentally friendly development approaches that reconnect development with biospheric preconditions, others argue that they mask ongoing contestation. This article begins with a multi‐level governance perspective on the “green goals” of the 2030 Agenda and the importance of local action for their implementation. The focus is on Europe, where municipal sustainability governance was found to be concentrated and where the environment is most likely prioritized. Against this backdrop, I analyze which policy measures the European Union, nation states, regions, and municipalities in Europe name in the reviews submitted to the UN High‐Level Political Forum to achieve environmental targets. I show that although the environment is not a priority of SDG implementation at any policy level, municipalities are occasionally leading the way in environmental action both horizontally, with site‐specific measures, and vertically, with multi‐level measures.

Keywords: 2030 Agenda; biodiversity; environmental sustainability; implementation; municipalities; Sustainable Development Goals; voluntary local reviews (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/9873 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v10:y:2025:a:9873

DOI: 10.17645/up.9873

Access Statistics for this article

Urban Planning is currently edited by Tiago Cardoso

More articles in Urban Planning from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().