![Sustainable Development Goals logo](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sdg-logo-white-1200x219.png)
SDGs by 2030 – are we on track?
Discover how the Business School academics’ research is contributing to achieving the UN’s 17 goals for sustainable development.
Our commitment
To the challenge ‘what are you doing for the great sustainability quest’ our academics at the University of Sydney Business School responded with research projects that contribute to achieving the SDGs by 2030.
These articles, resources and teaching aids are part of our School’s commitment to the SDGs. They are available for use under the creative commons licence. We welcome external collaborations towards the SDGs.
Professor Steven Maguire
Deputy Dean (Research)
The University of Sydney Business School
The world community committed in 2015 to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The UN report at the halfway mark in 2023, shows just 15% of the 169 SDG targets are on track to being achieved.
The world needs more projects and ambitious collaborations towards the SDGs. I believe you will be inspired by the ideas here. The SDGS need universities to partner with business, community, governments and society to land the goals by 2030.
Professor Jaime Miranda
Co-Chair, Global Sustainable Development Report 2023
Head of School, Sydney School of Public Health
The goals
Goal 1: No poverty
![Sustainable Development Goal 1: No Poverty](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sdg-goal-01-675x675.png)
End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed the progress of poverty reduction in the past 25 years leading to an additional 75 – 95 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022. Many countries have introduced short-term social protection measures to help the poor and protect people’s health, jobs and income. If these measures continue, they will provide the needed assistance for the poor and help them move out of poverty.
More on Goal 1
Goal 2: Zero hunger
![Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sdg-goal-02-675x675.png)
End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed the progress of poverty reduction in the past 25 years leading to an additional 75 – 95 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022. Many countries have introduced short-term social protection measures to help the poor and protect people’s health, jobs and income. If these measures continue, they will provide the needed assistance for the poor and help them move out of poverty.
More on Goal 2
Goal 3: Good health and well-being
![Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health And Well-being](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sdg-goal-03-675x675.png)
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on global health, disrupting essential services and exacerbating health inequality. Other areas of healthcare, such as maternal and child health, have also been impacted as well as efforts to combat infectious diseases like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life, and efforts should promote immunisation, preventative healthcare, and equal access.
More on Goal 3
Goal 4: Quality education
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Access to high quality education is important for building capabilities, equality, and economic mobility around the world. Education is also fundamental for individuals to live a happy and satisfying life. While education alone cannot solve economic problems caused by shortcomings in other policy areas, it is an essential part of a comprehensive approach to addressing these issues and requires well-supported and adequately funded educational institutions and systems.
More on Goal 4
Goal 5: Gender equality
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Discrimination against women remains prevalent in laws, policies, and institutions. Violence against women and girls is widespread, with over a quarter of women worldwide experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by a husband or intimate partner at least once in their lifetime. Efforts must be strengthened to address these issues to ensure that gender equality is advanced. Achieving gender equality by empowering women and girls will build a better economy and better society for all.
More on Goal 5
Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene is basic for human health and wellbeing, and billions of people will lack access to these basic services in 2030 unless progress quadruples. The demand for water is rising due to rapid population growth, urbanisation, and increasing water needs from agriculture, industry, and energy sectors. Decades of poor management, over extraction of groundwater, and contamination of freshwater supplies have exacerbated water stress.
More on Goal 6
Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
Despite progress, there are still 733 million people globally living without access to electricity, and 2.4 billion cooking with harmful and polluting fuels. Although the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency have improved, rising global energy prices are increasing energy insecurity. Countries need to speed up the transition to renewable energy and increase investments in renewables and energy efficiency.
More on Goal 7
Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
It is important that countries build inclusive growth by focusing on job creation, by investing in and developing sound, effective and efficient economic and social infrastructure as well as the need for workers to have access to education, skills, health care, social security and fundamental rights at work.
More on Goal 8
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Mental health plays a big role in advancing the economy – we need a measure beyond GDP
Mental health plays a significant role in productivity but is often overlooked. To maintain its promising economic growth, Indonesia must put its people’s well-being into the calculation.
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Getting old means never getting to retire
Demographic time-bombs and super ageing societies - what does it all mean for countries with falling birth rates?
![Empty conference room with a long table and chairs.](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/office-ULh0i2txBCY-unsplash_web-400x225.jpg)
Hybrid work: the 9 things we have learnt
After the pandemic-induced experimentation with new forms of work – here is a checklist of nine things we have learnt about hybrid working (and what is, and isn’t, working).
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The 4-day work week with Juliet Schor
This week: what if we all worked four days a week? We talk with Professor Juliet Schor about her research into the 4-day work week and the trials happening around the world.
Goal 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation notes the mutually reinforcing relationship between social and industrial development. Industrialisation and innovation have the potential to promote, directly and indirectly, a variety of social objectives such as employment creation, poverty eradication, gender equality, labour standards, and greater access to education and healthcare.
More on Goal 9
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Megaprojects and getting big things done with Bent Flyvbjerg
This week: a discussion with Bent Flyvbjerg on the factors that lead projects to fail, whether big or small, and the research-based principles that can make them succeed.
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Generative AI and life advice for the future with Kevin Kelly
This week: we talk with Wired Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly about artificial intelligence, group think, and excellent advice for living.
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Platform capitalism with Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin
This week: we interview Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow, authors of Chokepoint Capitalism, about how platforms capture value in creative markets.
![](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/machine-learning-hJ5uMIRNg5k-unsplash-400x225.jpg)
AI might be seemingly everywhere, but there are still plenty of things it can’t do – for now
From ChatGPT to Lensa, it feels like AI is here to take over. But despite some impressive results, such systems still have plenty of limitations.
Goal 10: Reduced inequalities
Reduce inequality within and among countries.
The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated global income inequality, partly reversing the decline of the previous two decades. Weak recoveries in emerging markets and developing economies are expected to raise between-country inequality. Globally, the absolute number of refugees in 2021 was the highest on record. The war in Ukraine is creating one of the largest refugee crises of modern times. Countries need to work together to address global inequality.
More on Goal 10
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From silence to celebration – shifting experiences for LGBTIQ+ in the workplace
Momentum towards effective diversity must be maintained while there is continuing aggression against LGBTIQ+ populations around the world.
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Revisiting the Asian century with Kishore Mahbubani
This week: we revisit our discussion with Singaporean diplomat, academic and author, Kishore Mahbubani.
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Suiting up for a flexible working environment
As we enter into new hybrid work arrangements what we wear to work presents an opportunity to challenge gendered norms.
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Mental wealth – the neglected force in national prosperity
As governments worldwide strive to restore business as usual, do we need to reframe our idea of prosperity?
Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
More than half of the world’s population live in urban settings. Cities are hubs for ideas, commerce, culture, science, productivity, social, human and economic development. Urban planning, transport systems, water, sanitation, waste management, disaster risk reduction, access to information, education and capacity-building are all relevant issues to sustainable urban development.
More on Goal 11
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Think slow to ensure your project succeeds
What do the movie studio Pixar and the Empire State Building have in common? Professor Bent Flyvbjerg shares principles of good project management.
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Planes, trains and automobiles – David Hensher’s moving life
What does an academic with a Google Scholar citation score of over 67,000 think about the impact of his career?
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Megaprojects and getting big things done with Bent Flyvbjerg
This week: a discussion with Bent Flyvbjerg on the factors that lead projects to fail, whether big or small, and the research-based principles that can make them succeed.
![](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/seoul-dbUCy23Bn8g-unsplash-400x225.jpg)
Getting old means never getting to retire
Demographic time-bombs and super ageing societies - what does it all mean for countries with falling birth rates?
Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Developing countries bear a large part of the climate, biodiversity and pollution impacts of resource-intensive production processes, without reaping their benefits. This situation has been made worse by the impacts of the pandemic. As part of sustainable global pandemic recovery strategies, the implementation of sustainable consumption and production will maximise the socioeconomic benefits of resource use while minimising the impacts.
More on Goal 12
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The future of seafood with Aryé Elfenbein
This week: we discuss lab-grown seafood and the future of fish with Wildtype Co-Founder, Aryé Elfenbein.
![](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TFTW_Season13_Bren_special_2560x1440-400x225.jpg)
Megaprojects and getting big things done with Bent Flyvbjerg
This week: a discussion with Bent Flyvbjerg on the factors that lead projects to fail, whether big or small, and the research-based principles that can make them succeed.
![](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/mining-oF7hh97lVqA-unsplash-400x225.jpg)
Resource security for renewable energy? No worries!
Is it possible to power the world’s energy needs and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
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Keeping it local – the new supply chain vibe
Resilience has become a saviour term but businesses can move beyond just mitigating supply chain risk.
Goal 13: Climate action
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, scientists recommend that by 2030 global emissions should be cut by 4 percent compared with 2010 levels. According to current national commitments, however, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14 percent during the rest of the decade. Climate change is an urgent economic, environmental, and moral challenge for the world to address.
More on Goal 13
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Solar overtakes oil investment – at last
The shift in energy investment over the last eight years is a key signal that change is possible.
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What the DAC? Can Direct Air Capture help save the planet from global warming?
Once the ‘ugly duckling’ of decarbonisation, direct air capture is finally winning friends and influence.
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Resource security for renewable energy? No worries!
Is it possible to power the world’s energy needs and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
![](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/climate-change-christopher-wright-400x225.jpg)
COP27 and moving forward with climate change responses
This week: we talk to Christopher Wright about COP27 and how to move forward with responses to climate change.
Goal 14: Life below water
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Ocean ecosystems form the basis for global economies, local livelihoods, food security, nutrition, and climate adaptation and mitigation. As highlighted in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, harnessing the potential of the ocean by developing sustainable blue economies can build prosperity and improve the lives of all, including the most disenfranchised and marginalised communities.
The below insight was co-written by Professor Emma Johnston, Marine Ecologist and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney.
More on Goal 14
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What if: an ice-free Arctic 2027
Climate change changes everything - our economy, our society and the ecosystems that underpin life on Earth. In this what if episode we talk to Professor Christopher Wright to explore what an ice free Arctic Earth might look like in 2027 if we pursue our current business as usual.
Goal 15: Life on land
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Ongoing issues like global deforestation, land and ecosystem damage, and loss of biodiversity present significant challenges for sustainable development. While work is being done to manage forests and resources sustainably, it’s crucial that measures to safeguard, rejuvenate, and sustainably utilise forests and biodiversity are put into action quickly.
More on Goal 15
![Sandra and Kai on an illustrated background](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/TFTW_Banner_Season11_v02_web-400x225.jpg)
The future of sand
This week: the world is running out of sand. The most-exploited resource after water should be recognised as a strategic material and regulated like a mineral commodity
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COVID-19 driving deforestation in Asia and South America
Deforestation is having a significant impact on global biodiversity.
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Declining fish poo changing ocean carbon balance
While commercial fishing rates have fallen, the decline in fish stocks over time is leading to unintended consequences.
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Are temperatures rising in a nonlinear way?
Recent catastrophes could indicate the climate system has crossed a dangerous threshold.
Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Building strong, transparent and inclusive institutions can reduce crime, corruption, and expand social freedoms. Making progress on global peace and human rights can help reduce the prevalence of exploitation, including human trafficking, incarceration rates, and violence against children.
More on Goal 16
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Sustainable Development Goals more urgent than ever in a post-COVID world
Prior to COVID-19, there were concerns about achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, a worry that has been clearly exacerbated by the pandemic.
![Illustration of a world map showing hard borders between sections of continents. Australia is in "hazard colours" (striped yellow and black)](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/nation-states_web-optimised-400x225.jpg)
The resurgence of the nation state
Responses to the pandemic have varied globally, but overwhelmingly they have been wholly national in character.
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James Crabtree on India’s billionaire raj
With the rise of a billionaire superclass from the austere remnants of India's state socialism, how will India handle rising inequality?
![Ballot box image from Flickr by stevecooperorg](https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Ballot-box-800x450-1-400x225.jpg)
Don’t give up on politics. It’s where the fight for the fair go must be won.
Governments' lack of response to rising inequality is not a problem of knowledge or public support.
Goal 17: Partnership for the Goals
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
Achieving the SDGs will require building multi-stakeholder partnerships and strengthening capacity and capabilities across sectors. Revitalising the Partnership will bring organisations from civil society, business, and government together to maximise SDG impact.
More on Goal 17
How we’re contributing
The University of Sydney Business School has been a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), since 2016. The School has committed to ensuring that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will systematically transform the narrative of business and management education beyond shareholder value maximisation.