I cannot give a comprehensive answer but have some ideas, maybe not empty ones.

a.) In applied science, the multi-attribute evaluation of projects can help. The social, environmental, economic and sometimes cultural impacts should be analyzed in every research (single-attribute assessments, optimizations won't help in sustainability, even they focus on the environment).

b.) Research funding decision should explore and consider the sustainability attributes; it should be a standard requirement.

c.) Publications should have at least a summary of the research impacts on sustainability and their contribution to the sustainable future (maybe it is too artificial, maybe not).

There are the plethora of qualitative methods are available. 

Please find my quantitative research, a multi-attribute optimization via this link:

Article Use of Linear Programming to Optimize the Social, Environmen...

Very interesting, thank you. CSW

Please let me know if the following references/sites are helpful to you:

1.  https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/scienceA/70/474/Add.2 - Science and Technology for Development: Report of the ... Action Agenda and aimed at supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. ... of sustainable development, including lessons learned, best practices and new ...

2.  Supporting Science for the Sustainable Development Goals

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/13636UN_partnership_in_Global_Forum_of_Funders-_concept_note_and_programme.pdfthe 17

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, mak- ... effective policies to support science for the public good put in place. In this.

3.  Science and the Sustainable Development Goals - United Nations

https://unu.edu/events/archive/symposium/science-and-the-sustainable-development-goals.htmlNov 15, 2015 ... Science and the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability ... The SDGs will rely upon good scientific input in a number of different ways.

4.  Science: What can it do for the Sustainable Development Goals

http://www.scidev.net/global/mdgs/feature/what-can-science-do-for-the-sustainable-development-goals.htmlSep 4, 2014 ... The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are taking shape, with the .... This is a good starting point, but it is clearly insufficient, as we need ...

Dennis

Dennis Mazur

We might hope that rational, local decisions would aggregate into good global outcomes, but that is clearly not the case, since, once, it was locally rational to trade in the unreliable (and smelly) horse for a horse-less carriage. Other local decisions, such as to vaccinate, did aggregate into a global good. Is there a way to consider the longer term outcomes at the onset of investment decisions?

One could also argue that vaccinations allow many more people to live to reproductive age - overpopulating the planet. Even that evident 'good' can be spun as a 'global bad.'  The UN wants me to write on science for sustainability, but if it is only an academic discussion, then specious analysis is the only outcome? Seems depressing.

Challenge: Science, Technology, and Innovation and the Triple Bottom Line, a presentation available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305491244_Challenge_Science_Technology_and_Innovation_and_the_Triple_Bottom_Line, explores (i) how STI might be harnessed for people, planet, and profit to deliver sustainable methods and minimize environmental harm; and (ii) how business might lend a hand. Needless to say, the ever-changing "realpolitik" of local, national, international, and global political economy must be factored in.

Presentation Challenge: Science, Technology, and Innovation and the Tripl...

There can be some common criteria and indicators to measure global sustainability. These can be derived from HDI parameters . as far as science in sustainability is concern it may vary with regions and countries as per their potential and availability of resources. eg. India majority is agrarian community  so they can contribute in agriculture,  livestock, forest,  fisheries and so its only resource which hey can use with their potential  with additive scientific intervention to make it more sustainable.

Thank you! 

Ambient monitoring is a great place to start.  Several U.S. Federal agencies and many state agencies in the United States run quality controlled and assured ambient monitoring programs throughout the year.  Some of these databases are several decades old.  Any broad scale changes in goals 6, 7, 11 - 15 may impact trends in ambient conditions.  

Measures on sustainability varies from region to region and depending on the field of application. What is sustainable in one region may not be sustainable in another region. The measures are also multi-disciplined. Take for example Water or Agriculture sustainability, the measures depend on - hydrological; topographical; population; economy; environmental; etc. Though one can argue that regional solutions can lead to Global solutions, the measures adopted may not be suitable Globally.

Two short papers with some cross-over approaches for the SDGs from interdisciplinary science are:

1. https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/729

2. https://emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/DPM-02-2017-0043

As well, the book https://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/10.5334/bao is free to download.