Programmes
The Lab's programmes claim eleven of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. Only where a programme sits behind them, and only with the modest phrase the framework allows: contributes to.
The Sustainable Development Goals are a common language for orienting research to public purpose. They are also easy to abuse: a page claiming all seventeen goals claims none of them. This page is the reverse index: which programmes contribute to which goals, and where the Lab does not have work behind a claim, it says so plainly.
For the six programmes themselves, see Programmes.
SDG 1 · No Poverty
Contributed to by Financial Inclusion. Asset finance, default risk and the design of instruments that reach the households infrastructure otherwise stops at.
SDG 2 · Zero Hunger
Contributed to by Agriculture & Ecosystems. Waste-to-value, on-farm technology adoption, and what the monitoring behind a payment actually costs a smallholder farm.
SDG 6 · Clean Water and Sanitation
Contributed to by Energy & Water Systems. Water delivery, vendors and payment, both in Delft-adjacent transboundary contexts and in the region where the number of people without safe water is still rising.
SDG 7 · Affordable and Clean Energy
Contributed to by Energy & Water Systems. Mini-grids and off-grid supply, storage and grid integration on a grid that already exists, and who bears the cost of firm capacity.
SDG 8 · Decent Work and Economic Growth
Contributed to by Green Industrialisation & Local Manufacturing, E-Mobility & Transport, and Financial Inclusion. Decent work is the thread through workforce capability, rider economics and asset finance, and it is the substance of pieces such as The Factory Cannot Transition Without the Town and Local Content Is Not the Same as Local Benefit.
SDG 9 · Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Contributed to by Green Industrialisation & Local Manufacturing and AI & Digital Systems. Critical raw materials and processing, circular economy, data centre infrastructure and automation.
SDG 10 · Reduced Inequalities
Contributed to by AI & Digital Systems and Financial Inclusion. Who a benchmarked model fails for, and who is left outside a payment or credit system by design.
SDG 11 · Sustainable Cities and Communities
Contributed to by E-Mobility & Transport and Energy & Water Systems. Urban transport, load, grid integration and the water systems a city depends on.
SDG 12 · Responsible Consumption and Production
Contributed to by Green Industrialisation & Local Manufacturing. Circular economy and e-waste, secondary materials, and end-of-life claims that hold up.
SDG 13 · Climate Action
Contributed to by E-Mobility & Transport. Where the Lab's climate work is measured through livelihoods rather than through emissions.
SDG 14 · Life Below Water
Contributed to by Agriculture & Ecosystems. Coastal and marine monitoring, community rangers and the Reef Support case study.
SDG 15 · Life on Land
Contributed to by Agriculture & Ecosystems. Soil restoration, forest and wetland monitoring, and carbon and biodiversity verification.
The Lab has no published field research behind these goals, and does not claim them: SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being, SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 5 Gender Equality, SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals.
Gender considerations run through all six programmes as an equity lens, but there is no gender-specific fieldwork behind a headline claim; naming that here is more useful than a bar chart that implies otherwise.
For the six programmes and their research areas, see Programmes. For where the Lab has worked on the ground, see Case Studies. For the openly published half of the work, see Articles. To discuss a study, see Contact.