Title: Sustainable development goals from behavioural lens: assessing the journey from policy to actions

Authors: Ishika Jaiswal

Addresses: Faculty of Economics, Indian Institute of Management Sambalpur, Sambalpur, 768025, Odisha, India

Abstract: The study assesses the effectiveness of behavioural interventions in promoting sustainable practices to achieve the overarching goal of sustainable development. Using a qualitative deductive approach, the study discusses and identifies effective solutions positively impacting behaviours associated with different Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty and employment, women empowerment, production and consumption patterns, health and education, sanitation and hygiene, cultural sensitisation, and environmental sustainability. The findings emphasise that behavioural insights are paramount to improve policy effectiveness by framing them in line with real-world potentialities thereby helping to achieve sustainable development goals in an integrated manner. The behavioural economics techniques used for achieving sustainable development depend highly on how socioeconomic and environmental dimensions are interconnected. In addition, it suggests that initiating behavioural interventions through developmental policies leads to favourable changes in human behaviour making the pattern sustainable.

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals; SDGs; behavioural insights; policy interventions; environmental economics; impact assessment.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2026.151407

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2026 Vol.25 No.1, pp.15 - 33

Received: 28 Jun 2024
Accepted: 30 May 2025
Published online: 27 Jan 2026 *

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