Driving Progress Towards Sustainability in the Publishing Sector: Are We Moving in the Right Direction?

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the United Nations' blueprint to deliver a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable society for both people and planet.Academic publishers and editors play a pivotal role in helping to achieve these goals, both through their own organizational policies and also through the knowledge published in journals and books.Yet it can be overwhelming to translate the SDG's broad goals that seek to end poverty, address climate action, and bring about gender equality into our daily work and organizations.This makes us ask the question, "Who is driving sustainability, and are we really going in the right direction?"Sustainability has been defined by the United Nations as the ability to "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".As such, sustainability should be considered a long-term goal.The process of achieving sustainability is often referred to as sustainable development, with the SDGs providing a blueprint for the world to prioritize and achieve sustainability by 2030.Since their adoption by all UN member states, the SDGs have provided a useful framework for all parts of society (from governments and private sector to individuals) to address global challenges.One benefit of the SDG framework has been the ability to align and amplify efforts around the agreed 17 Global Goals, providing a common language and prioritization of the challenges the world faces.This is demonstrated by a recent 2023 survey by GlobeScan that showed how public awareness of the SDGs has increased to approximately 50% compared to 38% back in 2017.The survey also showed how public awareness of the SDGs differs per region, with more awareness reported in the Global South contrasted to the Global North.The launch of the SDG Publishers Compact was arguably the starting point across publishing to prioritize action towards sustainability and the SDG framework.Developed as a joint project between the United Nations Publications Team and the International Publishers Association (IPA), the voluntary compact featured 10 concrete actions covering both how publishers can act within their organizations and how they can support sustainable development through the content they publish.Launched back in 2020, the compact coincided with the United Nations "Decade of Action" campaign, recognizing the need to accelerate progress to meet the SDG deadline of 2030.