According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the private sector plays a key role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). After all, sustainable and inclusive economic growth is essential to enable more people to participate in global prosperity. Encouraging entrepreneurship and job creation are key to SDG 8, as are effective measures to eradicate forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking. Since more than 90 percent of jobs are created by the private sector, more attention must be paid to entrepreneurs that help create dynamic and responsible enterprises that often generate positive externalities for society and the environment through investments in scalable innovations and a commitment to local embeddedness. As such, they help lift people out of poverty through new and relatively well-paid jobs and enable local economies to become more sustainable through global value chain integration. Transitioning to Decent Work and Economic Growth explores the prospects for SDG 8 in the Global South as well as the Global North. It especially considers the positive role the private sector may play as an enabler of human rights, creator of decent work and engine for inclusive development in different contexts. Further, it examines how the institutional environment can facilitate economic change, which may lead to social empowerment and enhanced economic opportunities. A key question the volume explores, is how—in an entrepreneurial context—innovation and scientific knowledge contribute to the creation of scalable innovation that help to de-couple economic growth from the use of natural resources. Transitioning to Decent Work and Economic Growth is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. The book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries. For use of the SDG logos and design, please see the according Guidelines for the use of the SDG logo, color wheel, and 17 icons.

A global assessment of potential and anticipated impacts of efforts to achieve the SDGs on forests and related socio-economic systems. This title is available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.

This book focuses on the relationship between the process of producing commodities and the process of social reproduction of the labouring population, and seeks to restore that problematic relationship to the central place it had in the analysis of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx.

Argues that the economy can only be improved through major changes that will make it more decentralized and cooperative, including such novel ideas as energy self-sufficiency, interest-free financing, affordable housing, local food systems and more. Original.

"In its resolutions 57/141 and 58/240, the General Assembly decided to establish a regular process under the United Nations for global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment, including socioeconomic aspects, both current and foreseeable, building on existing regional assessments. In its resolution 71/257, the Assembly recalled that the scope of the first cycle of the Regular Process focused on establishing a baseline and decided that the scope of the second cycle would extend to evaluating trends and identifying gaps. The programme of work for the period 2017-2020 of the second cycle of the Regular Process includes the preparation by the Group of Experts of the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects, of the second World Ocean Assessment, building on the baselines established by the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment (first World Ocean Assessment). In its resolution 72/73, the Assembly decided that the Group of Experts should proceed on the basis of a single comprehensive assessment. The present document was prepared by the Group of Experts in accordance with those decisions"--Summary.

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development makes the case that greening growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. Yet spurring growth without ensuring equity will thwart efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to health, education, and infrastructure services.

The sixth edition of the series highlights employment trends in renewables worldwide, noting increasing diversification of the supply chain.

Health and social care in every system and in every country is labour intensive, and must be oriented to people's needs if it is to be effective. It is now widely recognized that human resources for health (HRH) are a key enabler for the attainment of universal health coverage, and for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. As is stressed in the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030, there can be no viable national, or global, health system without an effective health workforce. The Global Strategy, adopted at the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly in May 2016, challenges the erroneous narrative of health workers as a unit of cost in the production of health. The evidence instead presents an intersectoral agenda on the pre-condition of equitable access to health workers in the attainment of universal health coverage, along with a dynamic labour market understanding of the substantive impact on education, employment, jobs and innovation in the health and social care economy. The Global Strategy, therefore, enables governments and other relevant stakeholders to adopt a holistic, rather than fragmented, approach to ensuring that the health workforce contributes both to improved health and to broader socioeconomic development.

Responsible Consumption and Production, the twelfth UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 12), calls for significant change in how we view both production and consumption norms. It is predicted that, at the current rate of population growth and consumption, the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles would require the equivalent of almost three planets by 2050. It is clear that change is required, involving action from everyone from the producer to the final consumer. Since sustainable consumption aims for world citizens to ‘do better with less’, all aspects of this change must be carefully considered with regard to critical ecological and social models that transform all production and consumption practices that are recognised as negative. Transitioning to Responsible Consumption and Production focuses on the transition to responsible production and consumption, and models that aid that transition. It offers a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder conversation on this issue, with a focus on the intersection between encouraging and enhancing sustainable production processes, and enacting behaviour change and socially oriented decision-making by consumers. Transitioning to Responsible Consumption and Production is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. Set to be published in 2020, the book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries.