The 2015 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) underscores the importance of science in guiding policy decisions for sustainable development. The report, called for by the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), provides a survey of scientific findings on oceans and livelihoods, sustainable consumption and production (SCP), disaster risk reduction (DRR), industrialization and the use of big data in Africa, among other issues. The report finds that further research is necessary to better understand how human well-being and livelihoods affect the sustainability of oceans, seas and marine resources. It observes that human activities increasingly degrade, destroy or threaten these resources, but that there is a lack of scientific information on how improvements in human well-being can reduce ocean degradation, or how changes in consumption of lifestyle patterns could affect marine resource sustainability. On DRR, the report highlights how natural disasters can erode development gains, and recommends effective DRR measures to ensure that disaster-prone countries and others are able to implement and achieve the post-2015 development agenda. On the use of big data in Africa, the report describes uses of mobile devices and internet to collect data more efficiently, as well as to access populations not covered through traditional data collection.