A list of indicators to monitor progress in an EU context towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is now available on the Eurostat website. The establishment of this indicator set was foreseen by the European Commission Communication “Next steps for a sustainable European future”. The selected indicators have strong links with EU policies and initiatives such as Europe 2020, the 10 Commission Priorities, the Circular Economy package etc., and look at how EU policies contribute to the implementation of the SDGs.
In this respect, they complement from an EU angle the UN global indicators, which refer to the goals and targets specified in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The EU SDG indicator set is the result of a broad consultative process, which Eurostat coordinated and which involved a large number of partners including other services of the European Commission, EU Member States, civil society, academia and international organisations.
The indicator set comprises 100 different indicators, evenly distributed across the 17 SDGs. On the basis of the EU SDG indicator set, Eurostat plans to publish a first EU SDG monitoring report in November 2017. At the moment only the list of indicators is available online.
The full implementation of the indicator set, including available data, will take place at the same time as the release of the monitoring report. The EU SDG indicator set will be reviewed regularly to take into account new data sources or new EU policy priorities.