Inner Development Goals

Inner Development Goals Foundation

Legal status	Not-for-profit and open-source initiative
Purpose	Fostering inner development towards more sustainable futures
Executive Director	Jan Artem Henriksson
Website	https://innerdevelopmentgoals.org/

The Inner Development Goals (IDG) is a non-profit, open-source initiative committed to fostering inner development towards more sustainable futures. The organization developed the Inner Development Goals framework with the intent to simplify a complex field of human development to help people better identify, understand, communicate, develop, and integrate the inner skills needed for sustainable development.

Rooted in interdisciplinary research, the IDG Framework consists of 5 dimensions with 23 skills of human inner growth and development.

Origins

Data released in the 2023 Sustainability Development Report shows that based on the current pace of progress, less than 20% of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets are on track to be achieved. The IDG initiative was created to address the slow progress of the SDG, recognizing that inner development is key to achieving sustainable change.

IDGs draw inspiration from Nordic societal models that prioritize personal development for societal transformation.

Organization

in November 2023, the IDG Foundation was initiated by several groups including the 29k Foundation, the Ekskaret Foundation, IMD Business School for Management, LUCSUS Center for Sustainability Studies | Lund University, the Stockholm Resilience Center, The New Division, Flourishing Network at Harvard University, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

The Inner Development Goals is a not-for-profit and open-source initiative. The initiative’s Intellectual Property and economy is placed within and managed by Inner Development Goals AB (svb), a Swedish company with dividend limitation that has been 100% owned by Ekskäret Foundation. In October 2024, the IDG Foundation will be taking over oversight and administration of the initiative to ensure their long-term purpose of bringing the Power of Inner Development to Global Challenges.

Goals Framework

The IDG framework represents 23 skills and qualities in 5 dimensions developed through two surveys. The IDGs are a work-in-progress and may continue to change as the project develops and new information and input comes in. The current IDG framework is set out in the following graphic:

Inner Development Goals Framework

Each of the five dimensions are described as follows:

Being — Relationship to self — requires cultivating our inner life and developing and deepening our relationship to our thoughts, feelings and body help us be present, intentional and non-reactive when we face complexity.

Thinking — Developing Cognitive Skills — requires taking different perspectives, evaluating information and making sense of the world as an interconnected whole is essential for wise decision-making.

Relating — Caring for Others and the World — requires appreciating, caring for and feeling connected to others, such as neighbors, future generations or the biosphere, and helps us create more just and sustainable systems and societies for everyone.

Collaborating — Social Skills — To make progress on shared concerns, we need to develop our abilities to include, hold space, and communicate with stakeholders with different values, skills and competencies.

Acting — Enabling Change — Qualities such as courage and optimism help us acquire true agency, break old patterns, generate original ideas and act with persistence in uncertain times.

Impact

Various organizations have adapted the IDG to address specific problems and make progress toward specific goals. For example, Plymouth University Researchers adapted the IDG framework into a measurable tool called IDG-A, designed to assess personal skills and qualities relevant to climate action.

The study introduced the MAP (Meaning, Awareness, Purpose) coaching model, which emphasizes intrinsic motivation, imagery training, and connecting personal values to climate action. This MAP model showed promising results in increasing IDG-A scores and promoting pro-environmental behaviors compared to traditional Carbon Literacy Training.

Findings highlight the importance of self-understanding, emotional connection, and nature connection for driving sustainable behavior change and improving well-being.

In another study, researchers at Osnabrück University developed, implemented, and evaluated an innovative experiential seminar for university students, which systematically covered all five IDG dimensions and touched on all 23 elements. Among the key take-home messages that students indicated they would like to preserve, the most prominent ones are related to self-awareness and inner compass, followed by complexity awareness, perspective taking, appreciation, and optimism.