Future generations and intergenerational sustainability towards SDGs: A comprehensive review for behavioral and institutional decision making

For Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), considerations to future generations and intergenerational sustainability are required and must be integrated into interventions and policies for human behaviors and decision making. Yet, such interventions and policies remain underdeveloped despite their potential contribution. We conduct bibliometric and content analyses of 119 peer-reviewed publications over 20 years with a focus on future generations and intergenerational sustainability. To this end, a conceptual framework is developed, combining cognitive, noncognitive and socioeconomic factors to be parts of interventions and policies for behaviors and decisions towards SDGs. With the framework, this review maps the evolution of the literature and spots a set of open questions as well as future directions of research. We find that the literature has expanded steadily and reveal two main insights. First, the related studies mainly examine interventions and policies on short-run behaviors and decisions, such as generative, cooperative and sustainable behaviors, overlooking inquisitive, creative and productive ones. Second, there are few studies that analyze long-run changes in behaviors and decisions, implying the necessity of further studies on how interventions and policies shall be able to influence people’s deliberative cognitive processes for the long-lasting impact. Overall, we identify clear and practical pathways towards accelerating progress for SDGs through linking actionable interventions and policies to behavioral changes and decision making, such as family-level education and community initiatives.