“Towards a Sustainable Europe 2030 – From Reflection to Action”

October 2019

The ESDN Conference 2019 took place in Helsinki, Finland on October 30-31, 2019. It was organized by the ESDN in cooperation with the Finnish Prime Minister’s Office. The conference was a 1.5-day event (30 October was a full day and 31 October was a half-day that ran until 13:00) and was held in tandem with the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference brought together sustainable development policymakers and experts from different stakeholder groups from all over Europe.

The title of this year’s Conference was “Towards a Sustainable Europe 2030 – From Reflection to Action”. The Conference focused on many topics relating to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs in Europe and took stock of where Europe stands after four years of implementation. Other Conference topics included the linking of the 2030 Agenda to economic reality and looking at meta-governance for sustainability. In addition, the Conference focused on various challenges for Europe in reaching the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs and delved deeper into 4 key themes: Circular Economy; Economy of Well-Being; Sustainable Finance; and Global Responsibility.

Agenda
Documents
Keynote Presentations
Session 1: Taking stock on the implementation at the global, European and national level: 4 years after adoption of the 2030 Agenda

Taking stock on the implementation at the global, European and national level: 4 years after adoption of the 2030 Agenda

Session 2: Transformative rather than incremental changes for sustainable development – What does it mean in terms of economics and governance for SD?

Transformative rather than incremental changes for sustainable development – What does it mean in terms of economics and governance for SD?

Joachim Monkelbaan, “Linking SD and the 2030 Agenda to Economic Reality”

Louis Meuleman, “Meta-governance for Sustainability: The full toolbox in implementing the SDGs”

Session 3: Key challenges for Europe in reaching the SDGs and 2030 Agenda
Photos

The following links provide further photos of the ESDN Conference 2019 in Helsinki.

Internal gallery for more images from the Event
More photos from the event in this external link

Back-to-back event with the ESDN Conference 2019

„Beyond Growth – Indicators and politics for people and planet”, Helsinki, 28-29 October 2019”

An international knowledge co-creation event Beyond Growth – Indicators and politics for people and planet was organized just before the ESDN Conference 2019. The objective of the event was to push the discussion on the beyond GDP measures into action in EU policies. The event was organized by the Finnish Development NGOs Fingo in collaboration with the Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development.

Beyond Growth – Policy Recommendations