The SDG Lab has entered a new phase of its existence: With more than six years of serving as an innovation hub for the SDGs – situated within UN Geneva – and spearheading movements such as Building Bridges for sustainable finance, the SDG Lab is in the midst of a strategic transformation process towards a 2.0 version.  

Framing this endeavour are two impetuses: the first is the notion of going back to the core of what sustainable development is about, as articulated in Our Common Future report of 1987, and what it means to be a ‘laboratory’. The second motivation is responding to an aspirational question, “What if we build a world where everyone lives sustainably with no debts to the future?”.

Developing tangible answers—and ultimately, contributing solutions—to this statement serves as the Lab’s beacon towards orienting its focus and activities over the coming years. This includes strengthening the Lab’s creative thought-leadership capacity as well as its role as a multi-stakeholder innovation space for the SDGs and long-term sustainability.

In tandem, the Lab will explore emergent areas such as regenerative development, future generations, and inter-generational impact, alongside examining the role of emotions and affective science in systemically and critically enhancing sustainability as a way of life; key accelerators as outlined in the UN Secretary-General's Our Common Agenda.

The SDG Lab will continue to convene and tap into the Geneva SDG Community to mobilize the expertise and capacity of Geneva-based actors to accelerate the SDGs, with a stronger focus on long-term sustainability. It will keep delving into already established and other relevant themes as well as applying strategic approaches in all aspects of its work, such as multi-stakeholder partnerships, systems- and futures thinking, and applying design-thinking and innovation methods.

Moving forward, the Lab’s work will be guided by a core set of values, the ‘5Cs’ – Care, Creativity, Curiosity, Circle mindset, and Collective intelligence. These values equally represent how the SDG Lab will approach partnerships and projects.  

Further, the SDG Lab team is working on a series of new flagship projects, and in the coming weeks and months the team looks forward to engaging with existing and new partners in co-shaping this 2.0 phase, towards systems-change for the SDGs and long-term sustainability. Stay tuned!