概要

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a plan of action for “people, planet and prosperity”. The 17 goals cover all crucial policy areas to secure a sustainable future, including education, health, economic development, social protection, environmental protection, and natural resources governance. Among private (understood as “non-state”) actors, Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) can play an especially important role for the SDGs and for SDG 17 in particular, as they can both serve as implementation means and help revitalise the partnerships for these goals. The objective of this chapter is to present how VSS can potentially make a contribution to achieving the SDGs if they overcome some main challenges. We first introduce VSS, briefly describe how they operate, and provide leading examples of VSS. Next, we discuss how they are linked to the SDGs. In a third section, some of the main developments in the landscape of VSS are identified. The fourth part discusses the challenges which VSS are confronted with.