This discussion paper titled “Bumps on the Road to 2030 - An overview of the common challenges for the Nordic countries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” was prepared by the Danish think thank Sustainia, by commission from the Nordic Council of Ministers in April 2017. The task at hand was to analyze, based on existing international comparisons, which SDGs the Nordic countries need to work on the most, in order to achieve them by 2030.

The report Baltic 2030: Bumps on the Road provides an overview of the 2030 Agenda implementation in the Baltic Sea Region, aimed at informing strategy and prioritisation discussions for national and regional collaboration. For each of the region’s eleven countries, performance on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is examined and five selected SDGs are discussed at the indicator level. Based on this analysis, the authors recommend seven avenues for action where greater collaboration in the region can support SDG achievement. The report was commissioned by the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and iis jointly published by CBSS and the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM). It was drafted by the advisory firm Nordic Sustainability and follows the previous Bumps on the Road to 2030 report published by the NCM in 2017.

Greenland is becoming a critically important territory in terms of tourism, climate change and competition for resource access, yet it has been poorly represented in academic literature. Tourism now features as a major source of income for the territory alongside fisheries. Cruise tourism is increasing rapidly, and might superficially appear to be best suited to Greenlandic conditions, given the lack of large-scale accommodation infrastructure and almost non-existent land routes between settlements. Ironically, one of the most spectacular tourist attractions is the large number of icebergs that are being calved as the result of glacier retreat and ice cap melting, both appearing to be taking place at ever increasing rates. As a consequence of ice removal, the territory's claimed extensive range of mineral resources, not least rare earth elements and hydrocarbons, are becoming more accessible for exploitation and, thereby, are acting increasingly as the focus for geopolitical competition. This book explores the nature of dynamics between tourism, climate change and the geopolitics of natural resource exploitation in the Arctic and examines their interrelationships specifically in the critical context of Greenland, but within a framework that emphasises the wider global implications of the outcomes of such interrelationships.

Many contemporary environmental risks and global environmental changes occurring today are unprecedented in the history of human life on earth. However, the images and narratives through which humans relate to these phenomena are built on existing cultural tropes and narrative models. Cultural, social, and historical contexts strongly influence how we construct images and narratives of nature and the environment. It is therefore highly important to study such narratives in works of literature, film, and other forms of cultural expression in relation to the specific circumstances from which they arise. Nordic Narratives of Nature and the Environment is the first English language anthology that presents ecocritical research on northern European literatures and cultures. The contributors examine specifically Nordic narratives of nature and the environment, with a focus on the cultures and literatures of the modern northern European countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, including Sápmi, which is the land traditionally inhabited by the indigenous Sami people. Covering northern European literatures and cultures over a period of more than two centuries, this anthology provides substantial insights into both old and new narratives of nature and the environment as well as intertextual relations, the variety of cultural traditions, and current discourses connected to the Nordic environmental imagination. Case studies relating to works of literature, film, and other media shed new light on the role of culture, history and society in the formation of narratives of nature and the environment, and offer a comprehensive and multi-faceted overview of the most recent ecocritical research in Scandinavian studies.

This is the third Environmental Performance Review of Denmark. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with special features on waste, materials management and the circular economy and chemicals management.