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In global sustainability governance, many actors have emphasised the need for policy integration across the economic, social, and environmental dimensions. In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to advance such integration. But have international organisations responded to this call, and can we observe any integrative effect of the SDGs? We draw on International Relations theories that incorporate change in their analysis and develop an analytical framework to assess change through the lenses of ideas, norms, and institutions. We use this framework to assess sustainability-oriented change in the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO is traditionally an organisation with a primarily socio-economic mandate and hence an ideal case to study whether the SDGs had any impact after 2015 in strengthening the environmental dimension of sustainability in the ILO’s institutional settings and policy development. We focus on the 2010–2019 period and conduct a systematic qualitative content analysis of primary documentary sources, complemented with expert interviews and data on operational developments. The paper concludes that there is a significant yet instrumental greening trend in the ILO’s approach to sustainable development, but also a bidirectional influence between the ILO and the SDGs.

The future of food is one of the major world-wide challenges. In this perspective paper, we set-up a framework for a multi-disciplinary future food systems approach, building on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We hereby combine a truly sustainable approach including social science aspects combined with the One Health approach. Scientists from a large number of backgrounds have addressed four key areas that are discussed in more detail in this paper: (i) nature inspired food production, (ii) sustainable immune resilience, (iii) social and cultural change of food behavior, and (iv) food fairness. We believe that transformations to integrated future food system approaches should move beyond single solutions and can only be solved by working in transdisciplinary settings of science, society, and industry.

During the negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations consulted worldwide nearly ten million people for their views. Such proliferating megaconsultations are often uncritically accepted as a remedy for an assumed democratic deficit of intergovernmental institutions. We argue, however, that the potential of civil society consultations to democratize global governance is constrained by the limited legitimacy of these consultations in the first place. Global consultations regularly fail to include civil society actors from developing countries, or show other sociodemographic biases. Also, they often fail to strengthen accountability between citizens, international organizations and governments. In this article, we investigate the causes of this phenomenon by exploring the relationship between the design of consultations and their democratic legitimacy. The basis for our argument is an in-depth empirical study of three consultations carried out during the negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals. We find that design is an important variable to explain the overall legitimacy of consultations. Yet its exact role is sometimes unexpected. Extensive material resources and open access conditions do not systematically enhance the legitimacy of the studied consultations. Instead, developing clear objectives, allocating sufficient time to participants, and formally binding the consultation to the negotiations hold considerably more promise.

"Food security, food safety, healthy consumption habits, and environmental sustainability are essential to the well-being of societies worldwide. Yet, progress in fostering sustainability in the global agrifood system has been slow at best and significant challenges remain. First, food insecurity remains a problem for millions of people, while its range and consequences have been aggravated by the recent food crisis (FAO 2008b). Second, repeated food scandals and health scares constitute additional challenges for food governance (World Bank 2005). Food is the number one cause of premature death in the western world due to the increasing consumption of fattier, saltier, and sweeter foods and drinks (Popkin 2002). Even in many Asian countries obesogenic diets are becoming more prevalent (Florentino 2002; IOTF 2005). Third, threats to the provision of adequate amounts of nutritious food are expected to multiply as a result of climate change (European Commission 2008a). At the same time, the food sector itself is a major contributor to direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions (FAO 2008a). Fourth, alternative food products – while promising environmental and health benefits in relation to their conventional equivalents – are also associated with costs. In India, thousands of farmers have reportedly committed suicide, partly as a result of debt due to unfair biotech deals (Nagaraj 2008).(...)" [authors remark]

"This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of private food governance in addressing the environmental challenges facing the global food system, today. Greenhouse gas emissions, decline of biodiversity, water pollution, pesticide use and the generation of waster are considered the new agrarian questions of this century. Crucially, the governance of such environmental strains is a rapidly emerging issue for private actors, who have become key players in global food governance. Yet, few studies have tried to understand the actual impact of private rulesetting, in general, and retail governance, in particular, in detail. Drawing on global governance literature and organisational theory, this paper evaluates the effectiveness of private food governance institutions for sustainability, in terms of their comprehensiveness, stringency, compliance and coverage. Next to this quite narrow understanding of effectiveness the paper also identifies the broader political and soci-economic influence of private food governance in terms of structural, cognitive and normative effects. The paper illustrates its arguments in two cases, namely GlobalGAP and the Marine Stewardship Council. As such, the paper advances our theoretical knowledge on private rule-setting institutions and contributes empirically to political science research by making available new data on a currently understudied case of private governance." [author's abstract]

During the negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations consulted worldwide nearly 10 million people for their views. Such proliferating megaconsultations are often uncritically accepted as a remedy for an assumed democratic deficit of intergovernmental policymaking. The research argues, however, that civil society consultations have fallen short of democratizing global governance for mainly three reasons. First, global civil society consultations have limited legitimacy. Whether they are conducted online or within global negotiating hubs, these consultations regularly fail to include actors from developing countries or beyond institutionalized civil society networks. Second, global civil society consultations have limited influence on intergovernmental policymaking and eventually fail to increase the responsiveness of global norms and institutions to collective preferences. The research reveals a democracy—influence paradox, whereby civil society is less likely to influence within formally-commissioned, far-reaching and inclusive consultations than within informal and elitist participatory spaces. Third, despite the proliferation of megaconsultations, discursive diversity in global policymaking remains low, with mainstream discourses being over-represented compared to transformative ones. Participatory exclusiveness eventually produces discursive exclusiveness, thus indicating the limits of discursive representation for global democratization. Despite their limitations, the research concludes that global consultations still provide an important impetus to democratization by building civil society actors' democratic skills. It advances a set of recommendations to guide the future action of practitioners in strengthening much needed global democratic safeguards, now that recent developments in world politics suggest it is fear, rather than cooperation, that dictates political behaviors in the global system.