A call for the “Public Relations-imperative for sustainability”: Roles for public relations in advancing the 2030 Agenda 

No sustainability development goals without relationships

On September 24, 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) signed an extensive intergovernmental agreement to pursue 17 sustainability development goals (known as the SDGs) that embrace a wide range of issues such as health, education, urban development, natural resources, gender, equality, technological development, the labour market, peace, economic growth, and institutional quality. This sustainability framework requires the collaboration of all kinds of public and private

Why should the field of public relations make the ‘sustainability imperative’ an urgent priority?

Scholars and practitioners in the field have many areas to consider and sustainability may seem like an area that might be better pursued by environmentalists or media. However, there are several answers to this question.

First, there is a natural link between the alliance building goals required to advance the 2030 Agenda, and public relations’ function of building, maintaining and changing relationships. Indeed, relationship building is necessary prior to any alliance.

Goal 17 points to the

Going deeper into the public relations-imperative for sustainability: a call to action to structure future public relations research and practice

The list of 2030 Agenda-words that so far in this commentary has shown to be public relations focused concepts is expansive: collaborative relationships, joint solutions, mutual understanding, shared meanings, facilitation of cooperative action, cross-cutting collaboration, trust-based collaboration, and others. This list allows for the statement that the 2030 Agenda demands an agenda for public relations research and practice, and it is the attempt of this section to elaborate on it by looking

A call to strengthen public relations education to support the 2030 Agenda

PR curriculum has evolved along with social changes and challenges, and the “PR-imperative for sustainability” wouldn’t be fully described without a reference to public relations education.

It has been elaborated here on the different public relations areas that are tackled by the need to increase knowledge to advance on sustainability (PR theory, management, research methods, ethics, technology, practices, and so on), and the list of competencies that are related is not short: analysis of the

Will you respond to the call to action?

The special section on the “Public Relations-imperative for sustainability” is meant bring scholars from across the world to focus their considerable conceptual, theoretical, methodical and pedagogical expertise in service of a larger agenda that requires public relations. The call for papers with the details of the special issue deadlines will appear on the Public Relations Review website and hopefully stimulate rich and deep discussions about the roles for public relations in progress on the

Declaration of Competing Interest