Additional Information:

Integrative long-term solutions and synergies are required to simultaneously address the many complex problems of sustainable development. Immediate responses include better planning for resilience against future zoonoses (where analysis of harmful interactions between socio-economic and ecological systems is critical). Furthermore, it would be useful to go beyond pandemics to look at black swan events (unforeseen and ruinous disasters) more generally, in order to also reduce future vulnerability to globally synchronized hazards like climate-related and other extreme events.

Existing frameworks like the widely accepted United Nations SDG and 2030 Agenda could serve as an initial roadmap (rather than an endpoint in itself) to begin the sustainability transformation, which should emerge as a key element of the “new normal” after the trauma of COVID-19. The implications of the pandemic for practically achieving the 17 SDG is one useful starting point.

Articles may cover not only obvious areas like green growth (e.g. energy, water, food) and ecology (e.g. biodiversity), but also go beyond, to help transform the existing unsustainable world order through changes in key areas like economic/financial systems (e.g. poverty, equity, livelihoods, markets); industry and commerce (e.g. supply chains, trade); and in individual/group interactions and behaviour (e.g. social justice, solidarity, lifestyles, urban habitats).

A recent article in IJSD (Munasinghe 2020) provides more useful background information. It points out that SD is the major challenge for humanity in 21st century - as recognised by all countries through the UN SDG and 2030 Agenda. In this context, is the current sustainable development framework robust enough to face multiple long-term global challenges, including pandemics, poverty, and climate change? In particular, COVID-19 highlights major existing unsustainabilities, including unhealthy interactions between ecological and socio-economic systems, like human encroachments into wildlife habitats that have facilitated coronavirus transmission.

Seven preliminary policy-relevant lessons are suggested to re-prioritize sustainable development issues -- protect the environmental base and avoid dangerous feedbacks; find integrated, globally-coordinated, systems-based long term solutions for multiple problems; empower individuals to act now; focus on social issues; pursue a transformative path to sustainability via balanced inclusive green growth (BIGG); promote sustainable urban habitats and lifestyles by leveraging digital technology; and use better risk analysis and management. The practical and integrated way forward needs to be explored, in the context of currently unsustainable human activities, and key problems of implementation, including linkages with UN SDG and 2030 Agenda.

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