Examples Governance lever

Germany’s sustainability governance ensures the participation of diverse stakeholders and ongoing dialogue with the scientific community. The German Government integrates the SDGs at an early stage when drafting legislation and legal ordinances in order to assess their impacts on sustainable development, consider conflicts between different goals and take account of effects on third countries.

What Germany has done in the period covered by this report:

Germany has set up structures in order to steer, implement, monitor and evaluate sustainability policy and is engaged in their continuous improvement.
When drafting laws and regulations, the German Government assesses their impact on attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Throughout its ongoing development of sustainability governance, Germany relies on close cooperation with the scientific community and science-based policy advice (science-policy interface).

Cooperation in action

Cooperation among all levels: Federation-Länder Exchange on Sustainable Development (BLE NE) and the local levelInternal link

In a multi-level federal system, each level of government bears a joint responsibility for achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda in and with Germany. This requires strong actors at local level, too, because regional states (Länder), towns and cities, municipalities and districts play a key role in implementing the SDGs.
Capacity-building: Sustainable administrationInternal link

The guiding principle of sustainable development must also be followed in administrative activities. The public sector serves as a role model and its activities have a relevant impact on the attainment of the SDGs.
Climate-neutral federal administrationInternal link

Pursuant to section 5 of the Federal Climate Change Act (KSG), the public sector serves as a role model and has committed to making the federal administration climate-neutral by 2030.
Sustainable procurementInternal link

Since 2011, the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Procurement (KNB) has been supporting public contracting authorities in taking account of sustainability criteria in their procurements.
Further training for a sustainable federal administrationInternal link

Beside the initiatives launched by the Climate-Neutral Federal Administration Coordination Unit (KKB), the Federal Academy of Public Administration (BAköV) is the German Government’s central further training institute.
DNS LabsInternal link

The Science Platform Sustainability 2030 (wpn2030) convenes DNS Labs, a compact, agile and co-creative dialogue format. These generate integrated knowledge at the science-policy-society interface for the German Sustainable Development Strategy (Deutsche Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie – DNS).

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As at: 17.06.2025