Summary
This paper addresses the research gap around the state of public-private complementarities in the field of sustainable development, with a specific focus on voluntary sustainability standards and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It uses a dataset of 232 voluntary standards to examine how their policies and organizational processes interact with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their targets. Significant public-private complementarities are identified, but also areas of institutional disconnect. The paper further explores how the creation of institutional linkages in this issue area is driven by instrumental, managerial, and normative concerns and develop an agenda for future research. This includes research on whether and how intensifying public-private interactions at the transnational level translate into tangible impacts for sustainable development on the ground.