Sustainability spillover effects of social, environment and economy: mapping global sustainable development in a systematic analysis

Initially introduced in 2015, the United Nations (UN) has launched 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a unique platform to facilitate global sustainability, end poverty, address environmental concerns, and act as a blueprint for peace and prosperity. Nevertheless, the question remains unanswered whether globalization and openness, as a result of the UN platform, support global sustainability or are against it. To answer this question, our study estimated and compared the effects of each sustainable development pillar of social, environment and economy in global regions and their potential spillover effects on each other. To estimate the sustainability spillover effects (or sustainability elasticities), a SEY (Social-Environment-Economy) model was developed as a package of simultaneous equations, Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and Granger causality approaches from 1971 to 2016. According to the results, the sustainability in each region showed a positive spillover effect on sustainability in other regions. This confirmed synergies between global and local sustainable development as sustainability elasticities range from 1.27% in Asia to 3.96% in MENA (Middle East and North Africa). However, there is some evidence in North America, that indicate trends in de-internationalization and de-globalization. Still, based on the positively dominant role of global spillover effects, this study considered the addition of a 4th pillar of sustainability (or sustainable development) as Peace and Partnership (or spillover effects) that is inter-related with SDG 16 and SDG 17. In this way, a new perspective as "Integrated Sustainability" is introduced in addition to the common weak and strong sustainability. This perspective, in turn, encourages global flow-based governance and improves sustainability in a peaceful and integrated environment through regional unions, intergovernmental and international agreements and partnerships. [GRAPHICS]