Sustainable development: from global goals to local implications. The case of Metropolitan City of Florence

Although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set by the United Nations in 2015, were developed at the international level, their effective implementation depends on the crucial role of the local level. The research aims to understand how the local level can or cannot steer sustainability. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, the research advances the studies on sustainability at the local level and provides policy implications for a pilot case study in the Italian context. The methodology is based on a data co-construction approach in three key areas: (i) the role and functions of local actors in achieving the SDGs; (ii) the levers of localisation; and (iii) the operational tools to steer local sustainability decisions according to the coherence criteria. The results show that the involvement of local policy makers is crucial for the localisation of sustainable development and for the identification of weaknesses within the governance structure. Furthermore, the measurement prototype is a suitable method for translating global goals into local contexts and makes it possible to highlight both sustainable drivers and priority areas for action.