Regionalizing the sustainable development goals: interpretations of priorities and key actors for creating sustainable island futures

The 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) are an important step in defining what sustainable development looks like in practice. However, to make concrete progress toward the SDGs, it is essential to understand how they are perceived and can be acted upon locally or regionally. In this study, we draw on survey and focus group research carried out in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the east coast of Canada, to analyze how the SDGs are interpreted in a regional context. Our research questions are as follows: Which SDGs have the highest salience for participants and may be leveraged for sustainability policy and practice? Which political actors are seen as having the capacity to implement the goals into policy and practice? Sustainable development goals aligned with economic sustainability are emphasized and seen as particularly important. However, economically oriented SDGs are viewed as compatible with a broad range of SDGs. Overall, respondents view the provincial government as the most salient actor with the capacity to implement sustainability policy and practice for the region. However, despite its perceived importance, participants assess provincial government performance very poorly regarding SDG implementation. In terms of the governance dimension of sustainability, our results highlight the importance of attending to the roles of mid-level political actors, as well as their relationships with national and local/municipal governments, in pursuing regional sustainability.