About this Research Topic

Background

The world has experienced remarkable economic growth and welfare gains as of the Industrial Revolution. However, significant environmental and social costs, cultural erosion, income inequality, and poverty have accompanied economic growth and welfare gains. Therefore, the future of the world and the notion of sustainability have become hot topics on the world agenda as of the 1970s. The United Nations especially pioneered the studies for sustainability. As a result of the international and regional efforts, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were developed in 2012 and accepted and came into force as of January 2016 to improve and promote sustainable development around the world.

The countries have shown different performance levels in terms of the achievement of SDGs. On the one hand, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Estonia, United Kingdom, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, and Slovenia with the highest SDG scores have made significant progress in the achievement of the SDGs as of 2022. On the other hand, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Sudan, and Liberia have made much less progress in the achievement of the SDGs. Therefore, the determination of demographic, institutional, social, and economic factors underlying the differences in the achievement of the SDGs will be a very useful tool for policy-making.

In light of the above concerns, this Research Topic will cover the areas of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their interactions with the disciplines of Economics, Business, and International Relations.

Based on the role of UN SDGs in promoting and increasing the awareness of sustainability notion around the world, submitted manuscripts should include themes from the following:

• Environmental sustainability in developing and emerging economies
• Renewable energy promotion
• Pollution research (water, air, and soil)
• Unemployment
• Relationship between SDG goal attainment and human development
• Governance indicators and relationship to SDGs
• Global armament and conflict
• Renewable energy or cleaner energy, and energy efficiency.

Keywords: SDG, Sustainability, Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, Emerging Economies, Developing Countries, Poverty, Health Economics, Unemployment, Pollution, Governance, Gender equality, Corruption, Country rankings, Global cooperation, NGOs

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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