SDG - Synopsis
Data extracted in April 2024.
Planned article update: June 2025.
Highlights
This article is a part of a set of statistical articles, which are based on the Eurostat publication ’Sustainable development in the European Union — Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context — 2024 edition’. This report is the eighth edition of Eurostat’s series of monitoring reports on sustainable development, which provide a quantitative assessment of progress of the EU towards the SDGs in an EU context.
Full article
Background
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations (UN) in September 2015, is the world’s roadmap for achieving sustainable development in this decade. The European Union (EU) has fully committed itself to delivering on the 2030 Agenda, and the SDGs form an intrinsic part of the European Commission’s work programme and the Political Guidelines of Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen [1]. In this context, the EU also presented its first Voluntary Review on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda at the United Nations’ High-Level Political Forum in July 2023.
Monitoring is an essential component in realising the 2030 Agenda’s vision, both globally and in the EU, by assessing and visualising the progress made so far towards the 17 SDGs. Since 2017, Eurostat prepares annual reports monitoring the progress towards the SDGs in the EU context. The 2024 edition is thus the eighth report in this series, analysing the EU’s progress towards the goals based on the official EU SDG indicator set.
The report presents an objective assessment of whether the EU — according to the selected indicators — has progressed towards the SDGs over the past 15-year period. Additionally, assessments of the most recent five-year period of available data (’short-term’) are presented to provide an indication of whether a trend has been persistent or has recently changed direction or pace. Given the time lag of the annual data, the assessments mainly refer to the periods up to 2022 or 2023. EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) refer to people’s income up to the year 2021. Thus, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are fully visible and more recent developments such as those caused by Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine are also mostly reflected. A chapter dedicated to short-term trends uses quarterly and monthly data to look in more detail into recent developments affecting SDG progress.
How has the EU progressed towards the SDGs?
The overview arrow (overleaf) shows the pace at which the EU has progressed towards each of the 17 goals over the most recent five-year period according to the selected indicators. Due to limited data availability, a long-term assessment is not possible for all indicators. The method for assessing indicator trends and aggregating them at the goal-level is explained in Annex II.
Over the five-year period assessed, the EU has made significant progress towards reducing inequalities (SDG 10), ensuring decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) and reducing poverty (SDG 1). Good progress has also been achieved in relation to the goals on sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9), sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), life below water (SDG 14), quality education (SDG 4) and gender equality (SDG 5). The EU has also seen progress towards the goals on peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG 16), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), global partnerships (SDG 17) and climate action (SDG 13).
Progress towards the goal on clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) was limited, with several indicators showing positive developments but others showing no progress or even movement away. For affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), a slight movement away from the goal was observed due to the negative impact on energy affordability of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the consequent energy crisis in the EU. Progress towards the goal on health and well-being (SDG 3) was disrupted by the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic that are now fully visible in the available data. The goal on life on land (SDG 15) is characterised by several unsustainable trends in the areas of biodiversity and land degradation, leading to a moderately unfavourable assessment of the EU’s progress in this area over the short-term period assessed. The European Commission has proposed important policy initiatives to reverse the degradation of ecosystems, as part of the European Green Deal, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the EU Forest Strategy and the EU Soil Strategy for 2030.
For each of the goals, the following section provides a brief overview of the main indicator trends standing behind the goal-level assessment. The goals are presented in order of aggregated indicator trend assessments, from best to worst.
Summary at goal level
Developments in SDG 10 ‘Reduced inequalities’ have been very favourable over the five-year period assessed. Income inequalities within countries have improved since 2017, as shown by the narrowing income gaps between the richer and the poorer population groups. Similarly, the relative median at-risk-of-poverty gap and the poverty gap between rural and urban areas narrowed in the EU. Data on economic disparities between EU countries also paint a favourable picture, showing a continued convergence of Member States in terms of GDP per capita and household income. Furthermore, the labour market integration of migrants from outside the EU improved, as shown by the narrowing of the gap between non-EU citizens and EU home-country nationals for almost all the indicators monitored here. Together, all these positive developments contributed to making SDG 10 the goal with the strongest EU progress in this report.
SDG 8 ‘Decent work and economic growth’ shows continued improvements in almost all the indicators monitored, even though the pace of the progress partly slowed in 2023 compared with earlier years. Despite a stagnation in 2023, both GDP per capita and investment have improved since 2018. This favourable development is also reflected in the labour market, with the EU’s employment rate reaching a new record high of 75.3 % in 2023. Similarly, both the EU’s long-term unemployment rate and the share of young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET) fell to new record lows in 2023. The EU is thus well on track to meet its respective 2030 targets for employment and NEET rates. In the area of decent work, both the incidence of fatal work accidents and the share of ‘working poor’ have seen favourable developments in the time period assessed. The EU’s material footprint, however, has grown since 2017, suggesting that in the EU resource demand is still strongly linked with economic activity.
The EU’s situation has improved for most indicators monitored in this report under SDG 1 ‘No poverty’. Most of these improvements took place up to 2019, while trends were mixed in the three following years to 2022. Trends for multidimensional poverty in the five-year period assessed show that fewer people were affected by monetary poverty, suffered from severe material and social deprivation or lived in (quasi-) jobless households. Despite these improvements, significant further efforts will be necessary to meet the EU’s multidimensional target of lifting at least 15 million people out of poverty or social exclusion by 2030. In the area of basic needs, the share of people overburdened by their housing costs or facing severe housing deprivation has fallen over the five-year period assessed. However, the proportion of people reporting unmet needs for medical care has risen almost continuously since its low in 2017.
Monitoring SDG 2 ‘Zero hunger’ in an EU context focuses mainly on the sustainability of agricultural production and its environmental impacts, but also on malnutrition. Trends concerning the viability and sustainability of agricultural production have been quite favourable over the past five years. The labour productivity of the EU’s agricultural sector has improved and public investments in agricultural R&D have increased. In addition, organic farming has grown steadily, although stronger progress will be required to meet the target of 25 % of the EU’s total farmland to be farmed organically by 2030. The use and risk of chemical pesticides has also decreased since 2016, with the EU being on track to its respective 2030 target. Ammonia emissions from agriculture and nitrate concentrations in EU groundwater bodies have fallen since 2016. However, adverse impacts of agricultural production remain visible in the EU, most notably the continued and dramatic decline of common farmland birds. No progress has been made on malnutrition, with the share of obese people in the EU stagnating.
Trends concerning SDG 12 ‘Responsible consumption and production’ have been somewhat mixed over the past few years. The demand for the global extraction of materials induced by the consumption of goods and services within the EU has grown since 2017. Trends for other consumption patterns are more favourable, showing a decrease in the consumption of hazardous chemicals and an increase in the EU’s energy productivity. Additionally, the average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions efficiency of EU car fleets has improved since 2017, even though stronger progress will be necessary to meet the 2030 target. The environmental goods and services sector has continued to outperform other economic sectors in terms of growth in gross value added since 2016. Total waste generation had been on the rise in the EU until 2018 but fell in 2020, likely as a result of lower economic activity in that year. The EU’s circular material use rate has stagnated below 12 % over the past few years, meaning the EU is currently not on track to doubling this rate by 2030 relative to 2020.
SDG 9 ‘Industry, innovation and infrastructure’ is characterised by favourable trends in most of its indicators, with the main exception of the area of sustainable transport. As regards R&D and innovation, the EU has seen continued but slow growth in its R&D expenditure (both in absolute terms and in relation to GDP), and stronger efforts will be necessary for the EU to meet its respective 2030 target of dedicating 3 % of its GDP to R&D. The indicators on patent applications to the European Patent Office, the share of R&D personnel in the labour force and the share of young people with tertiary education have improved considerably in recent years. As regards the sustainability of the EU’s industrial sector transformation, the air emissions intensity of the manufacturing sector — in terms of fine particulate matter emissions relative to its gross value added (GVA) — has improved, and the GVA of the environmental goods and services sector has continued to grow. Developments are mixed for sustainable infrastructure. The share of households enjoying high-speed internet connections has grown considerably since 2017. However, both passenger and freight transport have shifted further away from environmentally friendly modes such as buses, trains or inland waterways.
The EU has also made moderate progress towards SDG 14 ‘Life below water’. Trends in marine conservation and sustainable fisheries are generally favourable. The extent of marine protected areas has grown since 2012, and the EU appears on track towards meeting the target of 30 % of marine waters being under protection by 2030. However, it needs to be acknowledged that the available data do not provide an indication of the sites’ conservation status nor the effectiveness of the protection they offer to species and habitats. Model-based indicators on sustainable fisheries provide an improving picture as regards the trends of fish stock biomass and fishing pressure in EU marine waters. Trends on ocean health are, however, less positive. Due to the absorption of CO2 into the world’s oceans, the mean surface seawater acidity is continuing to increase, and in 2022 reached another unprecedented high over pre-industrial levels. The share of EU marine waters affected by eutrophication is characterised by annual fluctuations but has on average grown since 2018. On a more positive note, the share of coastal bathing sites with excellent water quality has increased slightly in the EU Member States since 2017.
Regarding SDG 4 ‘Quality education’, participation in education and training has developed favourably while education outcomes have clearly deteriorated. Concerning participation in education, the EU is well on track to meet its 2030 targets for early leavers from education and training and tertiary educational attainment. Adult learning (referring to the four weeks before the data collection) has also increased, showing particularly strong growth since 2020. However, the share of children participating in early childhood education has not grown substantially since 2016, and the EU is thus not on track to meet the respective 2030 target. Moreover, trends have been clearly unfavourable for educational outcomes. The proportion of low achieving pupils in reading, mathematics and science as measured in the OECD’s PISA study increased strongly between 2018 and 2022, moving the EU further away from its target of reducing these shares to 15 % by 2030. In addition, the share of adults with at least basic digital skills stood just above 55 % in 2023 and thus remains far from the target of 80 % by 2030.
The goal-level assessment of SDG 5 ‘Gender equality’ has deteriorated compared with previous monitoring report editions. In the EU, more young women than men attain secondary and tertiary education, and the respective gender gaps have increased further since 2018. The situation on the labour market has improved, as women’s hourly earnings are catching up with those of men, and the gap between men and women who are outside the labour force due to caring responsibilities has narrowed since 2018. Similarly, the gender employment gap has decreased since 2018, even though stronger progress will be necessary for the EU to meet its target of halving this gap by 2030. Women continue to occupy more leadership positions, as shown by considerable growth in both the shares of women in national parliaments and in senior management positions of the largest listed companies. Despite these improvements, more efforts are needed to reach gender parity in the labour market and in leadership positions.
The goal-level assessment of SDG 16 ‘Peace, justice and strong institutions’ has likewise seen a backslide compared with previous monitoring report editions, in part due to changes in the indicators selected. A new indicator on trafficking in human beings shows that the number of detected victims – trafficked mostly for sexual or labour exploitation – has grown strongly in the EU since 2018. In contrast, the rate of deaths due to homicide or assault kept falling, even though progress has slowed compared with previous years, and the perceived occurrence of crime, violence and vandalism in European neighbourhoods has decreased. Regarding access to justice, government expenditure on law courts has increased, while the perceived independence of justice systems in Member States slightly deteriorated in recent years. Additionally, the EU’s rating in the Corruption Perceptions Index has been stagnating, even though EU countries continue to rank among the least-corrupt globally.
The indicators used for monitoring SDG 11 ‘Sustainable cities and communities’ show a somewhat mixed picture. While developments regarding the quality of life in cities and communities have been favourable, the areas of sustainable mobility and environmental impacts show several unfavourable trends. Regarding quality of life, the indicators on severe housing deprivation, perceived exposure to noise, premature deaths due to exposure to fine particulate matter as well as the occurrence of crime, violence and vandalism in the neighbourhood have all developed favourably over the past few years. In the area of sustainable mobility, the use of public passenger transport modes (buses and trains) in 2021 remained at a considerably lower level than before 2020 as a result of changed mobility habits due to COVID-19. Moreover, road traffic deaths increased in 2021 and 2022 after a lockdown-induced low in 2020, and stronger efforts will be necessary for the EU to meet its respective 2030 target. Regarding environmental impacts, soil sealing with impervious materials has continuously increased since 2006, and the growth in the EU’s recycling rate of municipal waste has slowed in recent years, putting the EU off track to meeting its respective target by 2030.
Overall, SDG 17 ‘Partnerships for the goals’ improved compared with previous monitoring report editions but still shows a mixed picture. In the area of global partnership, EU imports from developing countries have grown strongly by 2023 after the interruption of trade flows by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the EU’s ratio of official development assistance (ODA) to gross national income (GNI) has grown strongly in 2022, in part due to support to Ukraine, putting the EU back on track to meet the 0.7 % target set for 2030. However, private EU financing to developing countries has fallen since 2017. As regards access to technology, the share of households enjoying high-speed internet connections has shown a clearly favourable trend since 2018. Regarding financial governance within the EU, even though the EU’s overall debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen sharply since 2020, it remained above pre-pandemic levels in 2023. Moreover, the already low share of environmental taxes in total tax revenues declined even further and reached a new low in 2022.
The overall progress towards SDG 13 ‘Climate action’ assessed in this report is better than in the 2023 edition. While the EU is facing increasing climate change impacts, it is stepping up its efforts to mitigate climate change and finance climate action. Most recent data for 2022 show that the EU has already reduced its net greenhouse gas emissions by 31 % since 1990. Stronger progress will be required though to meet the ambitious 55 % reduction target for 2030, with additional measures already introduced in the ‘Fit for 55’ package. However, the carbon removals achieved by the land use and forestry (LULUCF) sector that contribute to the overall net greenhouse gas emissions have declined in recent years, moving the EU away from its respective 2030 target. It is important to note that the assessment in this report is based on past greenhouse gas emissions and does not take into account the pathways and planned measures outlined in the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) of the Member States. In support of the EU’s climate-neutrality objective, the share of renewables in the EU’s energy consumption has grown since 2017, and the average CO2 emissions efficiency of EU car fleets has improved. Nevertheless, stronger progress will be required in both areas to meet the respective 2030 targets. Concerning climate change impacts and adaptation, the monetary losses from weather- and climate-related disasters rose sharply in recent years. On a positive note, financing of the transition towards climate-neutrality saw new funds made available via the issuance of green bonds. Additionally, climate-related expenditure for developing countries increased strongly in 2022.
The goal-level assessment of SDG 6 ‘Clean water and sanitation’ paint a mixed picture for the EU. On the positive side, the share of people without appropriate sanitation facilities in their households has been steadily decreasing, and connectivity to at least secondary waste water treatment has been improving slowly. However, trends regarding water quality are less favourable. While the biochemical oxygen demand in rivers and the nitrate concentrations in European groundwater bodies have decreased since 2016, phosphate concentrations in rivers have risen strongly. Additionally, the share of inland bathing sites with excellent water quality has been falling in the EU since 2017 and water scarcity is a concern, with the EU’s water exploitation index showing a slightly increasing trend in recent years. Additionally, a new indicator on the impact of drought on ecosystems shows that the EU area affected by drought has increased strongly since 2017.
The goal-level assessment of SDG 7 ‘Affordable and clean energy’ in this report has slightly deteriorated compared with last year’s edition, partly due to the repercussions of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. In the area of energy consumption, the EU achieved reductions in both its primary and final energy consumption over the period from 2017 to 2022. However, further progress will be required to meet the ambitious 2030 targets adopted in September 2023. Final energy consumption in households has also decreased since 2017, while energy productivity has improved. Trends in energy supply have been more mixed. While the share of renewable energy has grown since 2017, stronger progress will be required to meet the respective 2030 target. Moreover, the EU’s energy import dependency rose strongly in 2022, especially for natural gas, mainly due to the refilling of stocks that were particularly low at the end of 2021. Additionally, access to affordable energy saw a strong backslide because of energy price hikes, with the share of the population unable to keep the home adequately warm rising strongly in 2022.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is now fully visible in SDG 3 ‘Good health and well-being’. While the EU’s healthy life expectancy was on the rise until 2019, it declined quite strongly in the following two years and fell below pre-pandemic levels in 2021. Similarly, people’s self-perceived health declined in 2021 and 2022, falling below pre-pandemic levels. Likewise, the avoidable mortality rate increased considerably in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 related deaths. Road traffic deaths increased as well in 2021 and 2022 after the lockdown-induced reduction in mobility patterns, and stronger progress will be necessary for the EU to meet its 2030 target. The other causes of mortality monitored in this report – fatal work accidents and premature deaths due to exposure to fine particulate matter – have not (or to a lesser extent) been affected by the pandemic and continue to show favourable developments. The same applies to most of the health determinants monitored. The share of people suffering from noise disturbance fell slightly between 2015 and 2020, as did the share of smokers. The share of obese people has remained unchanged between 2017 and 2022. Trends in access to health care have been even more unfavourable. The share of people reporting unmet needs for medical care has risen almost continuously since its low in 2017. Additionally, a new indicator shows that the consumption of antibiotics in the community and hospital sectors has fallen only slightly since 2017, meaning the EU is not on track to meet its respective 2030 target.
The assessment of SDG 15 ‘Life on land’ remains unfavourable, showing a further worsening of the situation compared with previous editions. This is attributable in part to a new indicator on the area impacted by drought. While the EU’s forest area has increased slightly, pollutant concentrations in European rivers have shown mixed trends, with improvements in the biological oxygen demand occurring alongside increases in phosphate concentrations. Regarding land degradation, soil sealing with impervious materials has increased continuously since 2006 and the EU area affected by drought has grown strongly since 2017. New data on terrestrial protected areas show that the designation of new areas has stagnated since 2019, meaning the EU is not on track to protecting at least 30 % of its land area by 2030. Additionally, the EU continues to face dramatic long-term declines in common bird and grassland butterfly populations. This overall assessment of SDG 15 thus confirms the results of other stocktaking reports and evaluations, which conclude that the conservation status of ecosystems and biodiversity in the EU is unfavourable, and that the negative impacts of EU life-style patterns on (global) biodiversity are considerable [2].
Direct access to
More detailed information on EU SDG indicators for monitoring of progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as indicator relevance, definitions, methodological notes, background and potential linkages can be found in the introduction as well as in Annex II of the publication ’Sustainable development in the European Union — Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context — 2024 edition’.
Notes
- ↑ See the introduction for a more detailed overview of the EU policy context related to the SDGs.
- ↑ See, for example, European Environmental Agency (2023), Monitoring report on progress towards the 8th EAP objectives – 2023 edition; Maes, J., Teller, A., Erhard, M., Conde, S., Vallecillo Rodriguez, S., Barredo Cano, J.I., Paracchini, M., Malak, D.A., Trombetti, M., Vigiak, O., Zulian, G., Addamo, A., Grizzetti, B., Somma, F., Hagyo, A., Vogt, P., Polce, C., Jones, A., Carré, A. and Hauser, R. (2021) EU Ecosystem Assessment; and Díaz et al. (2019), Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.