Finding pathways to synergistic development of Sustainable Development Goals in China

While the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) index is a widely employed method of measuring progress in the United Nations (UN) SDGs, as it allows comparisons across countries and regions, it does not usually offer any indication as to how to move the SDGs forward. To address this deficit, we analyzed the impact of the offsetting effects of changes in individual SDG scores on the SDG index from 2015 to 2018 at the provincial level in China. Future priority goals are also revealed by accessing the interactions among the SDGs. Our findings show that both the number of SDGs that experienced an increase or decrease in the score and the degree of change in SDG scores have a major impact on changes in the SDG index score. For example, a decline in individual SDG scores at the national level usually represents a decline in the scores of more than 15 provinces, while an increase in the SDG score may mask the fact that some provinces have experienced a decline in their scores. In addition, changes in SDG scores can show some similarities in the strengths and weaknesses even across provinces in different geographical zones. The analysis of SDG interactions suggests that prioritizing the promotion of SDG7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG12 (Responsible Production and Consumption) will advance the synergistic development of SDGs in China. Overall, our study highlights the necessity to focus not only on regions with declining aggregated index scores but also on goals with declining scores in order to implement the SDGs as a whole. Meanwhile, leveraging the similarity of SDG changes to inform sustainable management policies will contribute to the overall implementation of the SDGs in different regions.