Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Sep 7;25(1):1-15.
doi: 10.1080/1523908X.2021.1976123. eCollection 2023.

Can the Sustainable Development Goals Green International Organisations? Sustainability Integration in the International Labour Organisation

Francesco S Montesano  1 , Frank Biermann  1 , Agni Kalfagianni  1 , Marjanneke J Vijge  1
Affiliations

Can the Sustainable Development Goals Green International Organisations? Sustainability Integration in the International Labour Organisation

Francesco S Montesano et al. J Environ Policy Plan. .

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Environmental policy integration; International Labour Organisation; Sustainable Development Goals; global sustainability governance; institutional change.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The cycle of change.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Abbott, K. W., & Bernstein, S. (2015). The high-level political forum on sustainable development: Orchestration by default and design. Global Policy, VI(3), 222–233. 10.1111/1758-5899.12199 - DOI
    1. Alger, J., & Dauvergne, P. (2019). The translocal politics of environmental norm diffusion. Environmental Communication, XIV(2), 1–13. 10.1080/17524032.2019.1665567 - DOI
    1. Arias-Maldonado, M. (2013). Rethinking sustainability in the anthropocene. Environmental Politics, XXII(3), 428–446. 10.1080/09644016.2013.765161 - DOI
    1. Arts, B., & Buizer, M. (2009). Forests, discourses, institutions. Forest Policy and Economics, XI(5-6), 340–347. 10.1016/j.forpol.2008.10.004 - DOI
    1. Barnett, M. N., & Finnemore, M. (2004). Rules for the world: International organizations in global politics. Cornell University Press.

LinkOut - more resources