This year marks the midpoint of the Nordic countries’ adaptation of the framework for the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the seven years that are left until the targets are to be reached in 2030.

                  (Greenland’s national SDG mapping, 2021)

The Nordic countries have continuously ranked at the top of international assessments with regards to SDG implementation. This does not mean, however, that sustainable development in the Nordic Region has been fully achieved. Each country continues to face numerous challenges, including unsustainable consumption and production patterns, the effects of a changing climate, as well as rebalancing our societies after multiple crises marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing recovery, energy supply shortages in Europe and the war in Ukraine. According to the European Sustainable Development Report for 2022, the world is currently not on track to achieving most of the SDGs, underscoring the importance of the Nordic Region’s ability and need to reverse this trend and enhance progress on multiple fronts. As Greenland stated in its SDG report, “The philosophy of sustainability calls upon us to see our common challenges as new opportunities.”

Bearing this in mind, what exactly is happening in the Nordic countries, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland when it comes to action at national level on the 2030 Agenda? This report follows the report The Nordic Region and the 2030 Agenda from 2021, which looked at the ways in which national structures, action plans, monitoring and reporting along with international efforts for the SDGs took place across the region. Since the nature of this work changes in the respective countries from year to year, the purpose of this edition is to update and compile an overview of the 2030 Agenda efforts in the Nordic Region with relevant and accessible information. It describes central policy decisions, actors and national structures in ongoing SDG work, and highlights inspiring examples of national networks and societal participation. Where information about more recent action has not been available, other supplementary aspects have been added, hence overlaps in the national chapters occur. New to this edition are the sections on regional and local activities, work which lies at the core of accomplishing the global goals and targets, while also strengthening the Nordic countries’ leadership and grassroots involvement, leaving no one behind.

The primary target group for this report are actors working with the 2030 Agenda in the Nordic Region, and the aim is to improve knowledge sharing and mutual exchanges between the countries.

This second version of the Nordic Agenda 2030 report was drawn up by Nordregio in December 2022. The Nordic Council of Ministers will update it on a needs basis.