Integration of Sustainable Development Goals into the Practice of Regional Strategic Management in the Northwestern Federal Okrug of Russia

Abstract

In light of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it has become increasingly important to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into regional strategies. Although this process is often fragmented, little is known about how regional authorities’ approaches to sustainable development produce systemic imbalances in strategic documents. This study examines patterns of SDG integration and the resulting imbalances using a two-level qualitative content analysis of 11 regional development strategies in Russia’s Northwestern Federal Okrug. The main finding is a phenomenon we call “implicit localization”: although the term “sustainable development” is widely used in strategies, it is rarely linked in a systematic way to the international SDG framework. The paper argues that national projects function as a systemic “filter,” allowing only those SDGs that directly align with federal priorities to enter the regional agenda, thereby shaping the observed imbalance. A detailed mapping of all 17 SDGs using a heat map method reveals a clear hierarchy of priorities: economic goals (SDGs 8 and 9), infrastructure development (SDG 11), and core social objectives (SDGs 3, 4, and 16) are strongly integrated. In contrast, long-term environmental challenges (SDGs 12, 13, and 14) and specific social goals (SDGs 2 and 5) consistently remain marginal in regional planning. To account for these imbalances, the paper proposes a typology of conceptual models (socio-economic, resource-based economic, eco-economic, and comprehensive). This framework demonstrates that the observed economic bias is a logical consequence of dominant goal-setting approaches. The study contributes to the theory of regional strategic planning, and its findings can be applied by public authorities to audit and adjust development strategies, as well as to identify gaps in goal-setting.