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

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.

Planetary Integrity

“…In sum, the literature studies do not support claims that the Sustainable Development Goals reorient international organizations towards planetary integrity, especially when such organizations are only indirectly concerned with environmental protection, such as the International Labour Organization (Montesano et al 2021). The Sustainable Development Goals at best only seem to have secondary steering effects in this regard.…”

“…Secondary steering refers to change that happens 'in the name of the Sustainable Development Goals'. For example, one study has shown a trend towards more environmental integration in the International Labour Organization's approach to sustainability, in normative and institutional terms (Montesano et al 2021). This trend seems to have accelerated and coincides with the vision of the 2030 Agenda.…”

Assessing the Impact of Global Goals

“…After 2015, the policies of the organization would need to be geared more towards some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals than before, and this would need to be because of the goals. Only if such a policy change in the activities of the International Labour Organization after 2015 could be observed and causally linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, could we be able to speak with confidence of a steering effect of the global goals (for a first assessment, see Montesano et al 2021).…”

Balancing or prioritising for sustainable development? Perceptions of sustainability integration among professionals

“…After the launch of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 (UNGA, 2015), these new goals have become the central global normative framework for sustainable development, or “sustainability” (Biermann et al, 2022); they are also presented as a new mechanism to integrate the three dimensions of sustainability (Tremblay et al, 2020; Zheng et al, 2022). We use here the concept of “sustainability integration”, which we define as “the simultaneous and interdependent consideration and operationalisation by actors of the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental” (Montesano et al, 2021, p. 1).…”

“…We define professionals here as individuals who work in an organisation and whose perceptions are hence likely to influence that organisation's policies and programmes, including on sustainability integration. Perceptions inform the political and institutional context, where subjective ideas gradually evolve into norms and then practices (Alger & Dauvergne, 2019; Hay, 2006; Montesano et al, 2021; Schmidt, 2008). In other words, whether and how sustainability integration is to inform governance depends on perceptions about the relationship between the three sustainability dimensions.…”