16 May 2017
SEI Briefs Apply Planetary Boundaries Framework to SDGs
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The Stockholm Environment Institute released a policy brief exploring how the planetary boundaries framework can support national SDGs implementation.

A second brief translates all the planetary boundaries to the level of the European Union and its member states, and finds that the EU is not living within planetary limits.

April 2017: The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) released two policy briefs on how the “planetary boundaries” framework can help in setting national and EU strategies for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Planetary boundaries refer to the “safe operating space” within which the Earth system must remain, the authors write, in order to function as humans’ life-support system and avert the risk of large-scale or irreversible environmental change.

One brief, titled ‘How the Planetary Boundaries Framework can Support National Implementation of the 2030 Agenda’ and authored by Holger Hoff and Ivonne Lobos Alva, proposes using the planetary boundaries framework to help specify and quantify global and national ambition levels. The paper suggests that down-scaling the planetary boundaries could help to identify vulnerable regions and those areas with more resource-efficient production, which would then support coherent SDG implementation, SDG 12 (responsible production and consumption) and sustainable sourcing.

The brief also explores opportunities for combining a planetary boundaries framework with consumption-based environmental accounting to operationalize SDG 12 and inform sustainable consumption, production and trade across scales. The paper recommends continuous science-policy dialogue to mainstream the planetary boundaries into national policy and support cross-scale policy coherence.

The EU is not living within planetary limits, and exceeds its “fair share” related to biogeochemical flows and climate change.

Another brief, titled ‘Bringing EU Policy into Line with the Planetary Boundaries’ and written by Holger Hoff, Tiina Häyhä, Sarah Cornell and Paul Lucas, translates the planetary boundaries – which include global limits of resource use, emissions of harmful substances and other environmental pressures – to the level of the EU and its member states. The authors find that the EU is not living within planetary limits. Instead, it exceeds its per capita “fair share” related to biogeochemical flows and climate change. The paper uses an equal-per-capita allocation approach to illustrate how the planetary boundaries framework can help formulate policies and targets to operationalize the EU’s 7th Environment Action Programme and the SDGs in the EU. The authors caution that such translation involves political decisions about appropriating responsibilities and allocating global “safe operating space.”

On next steps, the authors propose systematic policy mapping to identify entry points for mainstreaming the planetary boundaries into policies and strategies. [SEI Press Release on National Implementation Brief] [SEI Press Release on EU Brief] [How the Planetary Boundaries Framework can Support National Implementation of the 2030 Agenda] [Bringing EU Policy into Line with the Planetary Boundaries]

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