ABSTRACT
Private governance refers to the rules, standards and institutions made by non-state actors to move behaviour towards public goal. Since the 1990s, an increasing number of private governance initiatives were developed to address sustainability challenges associated with global economy. Strong synergies should therefore exist between private governance and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): private governance has the potential to become an important channel for SDG implementation while the SDGs can provide private governance initiatives with new opportunities to increase public support and improve effectiveness. However, existing research has shown that linkages between private governance and the SDGs remain underexplored, and many private governance initiatives may run the risk of using SDGs to legitimatize their business as usual. Future research and practices should identify ways to incentivize private governance initiatives to better integrate the SDGs into their work to make transformative changes for sustainable development.
