In 2015, world leaders adopted the Agenda 2030, which aims to free humanity from poverty, secure a healthy planet for future generations, and build peaceful, inclusive societies to ensure a dignified life for all. Agenda 2030 consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which replace the previously mentioned Millennium Development Goals.

The SDGs provide an international high-level normative framework for action and governments are expected to implement measures to achieve the SDGs into legislation. However, the targets are in no way legally binding on governments (or other actors).

 

Negotiations for the Sustainable Development Goals

In Rio de Janeiro, the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Summit) agreed to create new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The outcome document of this meeting, The Future We Want, states that “the objectives should address and integrate in a balanced way all three dimensions of sustainable development and their links” (The Future We Want, paragraph 246). Further on, these objectives should be “action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number; ambitious, global in nature and universally applicable to all countries, while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development, and respecting national policies and priorities" (paragraph 247).

The previous UN goals, the eight MDGs, had been prepared by a group of UN experts under the guidance of the UN Secretary-General. The strategy for the new goals was completely different. At Rio+20 it was decided that an open working group would be set up to formulate the goals. This working group would consist of 30 participants. In thirteen meetings between March 2013 and July 2014, the working group negotiated the new SDGs. 

As is typical of UN negotiation processes, this open-ended working group also began its work in a difficult situation characterized by a long-standing mistrust between developing and developed countries. In the outcome document of the 2012 UN meeting, the number of participants in the open-ended working group was limited to 30, as it was believed that a broader negotiation process involving all countries would not succeed in agreeing on targets.

However, when deciding on the participants, 70 countries expressed their interest in participating in the working group. Due to the reluctance to poison the atmosphere from the outset and the expected impediment to future joint adoption of the targets by the omitted countries, a new solution was reached. The 30 seats were allocated to five UN groups (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin America & Caribbean, and Western Europe & Other countries) so that all 70 willing countries could participate (for example, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom formed one seat, Colombia and Guatemala one, etc.).

The negotiation process began with gathering information with the help of experts and other stakeholder consultations. In this way, the aim was to build a common understanding of the SDGs in a situation where there were huge differences in the amount of expertise.

One important feature of the negotiation process was considered to be that grassroots actors – citizens and groups of citizens – had a much greater impact on it than on UN processes in general. The representation of the private sector in sustainable development processes, in general, has also increased in the 21st century, which was reflected in the formulation of sustainable development goals. It has been critically pointed out that the companies involved in the SDG processes came mainly from certain sectors, such as the mining, oil and gas, and food sectors, and disproportionately from Western Europe and the United States. 

Negotiations between governments are said to have been more dynamic in this new 30-seat arrangement compared to the more traditional UN structure, with larger coalitions such as the EU, the G77 (a coalition of 134 developing countries), and the LDC (48 least developed countries) at the center.

During the negotiations, the UN General Assembly decided that future goals would extend the scope of the previous MDGs from poverty and social security to also include environmental protection and economic growth and that the aim would also be to make the three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social and ecological – work together.

As a result of this negotiation process, the interests of 193 countries were squeezed into 17 sustainable development goals and 169 sub-goals.

This was followed by a second negotiation process, in particular on the implementation and monitoring of these objectives. This process no longer took place within the framework of an open working group. In this process, for example, it was negotiated whether the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ principle would apply to all dimensions of sustainable development, as developing countries wanted, or only to the ecological pillar, as developed countries wanted.

These negotiations were long and meandering, but a common position was agreed on the evening of 2 August 2015.

 

17 Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contain 17 different goals, which in turn are divided into 169 targets. For all of these, various indicators have been defined, on the basis of which the achievement of the goal can be monitored. There are 231 of these different metrics (there are a total of 247 metrics in targets because some are used in multiple targets).

Figure: 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

(The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States)

For example, the first goal of 'No poverty' or longer 'eradicate poverty in all forms everywhere' is divided into seven targets such as 'By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions national definitions' (target 1.2). For this target there are two indicators: 'Percent of the population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age' (indicator 1.2.1) and 'Percent of men, women, and children living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions' (indicator 1.2.2).

The SDG plan has been hailed by the scientific community as a clear improvement. The Millennium Development Goals were a plan tailored specifically to help developing countries. SDGs, on the other hand, set targets globally. The MDGs focused in particular on poverty eradication, while the SDGs take into account the various aspects of sustainable development – social, economic, and ecological sustainability – in a more balanced way. In the Millennium Goals, the environment (MDG 7) was rather an add-on to the goals focused on poverty and equity. Of the sustainable development goals, three goals (SDGs 13-15) focus on improving the state of the environment. The scientific community also holds that the goals take a more systemic perspective on problem-solving. The SDGs have received a great deal of criticism as well, to which we will return later in this section

As described above,  the SDG objectives were shaped around the three pillars of sustainability. As a result, cultural sustainability does not appear in Agenda 2030 as its own goal. However, culture is mentioned in the objectives Education (SDG 4), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8), Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), and Responsible Consumption (SDG 12). In the targets, culture is spoken of, for example, in the context of diversity and tourism, or it occurs as part of the terms interculturalism and cultural heritage. Thus, culture has a role in the sustainable development goals, although it is not mentioned as its own target.

The lack of cultural sustainability in the SDG targets is probably due in part to the lack of a single, clear definition for it. The role of culture in sustainable development has been debated since at least the late 1980s. Cultural sustainability has similarities with social sustainability and is often defined as part of social sustainability. The term socio-cultural sustainability is also sometimes used. Social and cultural sustainability are linked, for example, by the fact that values ​​established in culture and, for instance, the architecture of different times – such as the type of housing that is built – affect how societies are shaped and how social sustainability is realized in them.

However, some researchers have suggested that cultural and social sustainability should be considered as separate aspects of sustainability. If culture is understood more broadly as lifestyles and values, cultural sustainability will appear to be broader than social sustainability, perhaps even a prerequisite for achieving all the goals of sustainable development. We return to lifestyles and values ​​in the last section of the course.

 

How is the world doing today?

In this fourth part of the course, we started by presenting the pillars of sustainable development and found that there are tensions between them. We went through the shaping of the sustainable development agenda over the decades and found that the coordination of the pillars proved difficult to implement despite the hard work.

Agenda 2030 is the latest attempt by the UN to reconcile the three pillars for the benefit of humanity and the planet. Although the SDGs for sustainable development are formulated on the basis of the three pillars, the SDGs are not quite unambiguously divided into these pillars but can be divided in several ways. For example, in the figure below, the goals are arranged first on an ecological basis, and the social and economic goals are built inside them, according to the idea of ​​strong sustainability. Objective 17, “Cooperation and Partnership”, runs through them all.

In this section, we divide the goals according to the three pillars and look at each goal from the perspective of how it has been achieved in the light of a few metrics and key figures – that is, how the world is doing in the 2020s. The data comes from reports on progress towards the various UN goals, the most recent of which is for 2024.

 

Figure: One way to divide the 17 SDGs according to the ecological, social, and economic dimensions. Source: Azote Images for Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University.

Ecological dimension

During the course, it has become clear that, although countless environmental agreements have been signed, the biggest environmental threats, climate change and biodiversity loss, have not been resolved, but on the contrary, the situation is still deteriorating. SDG targets 13 to 15 are obviously part of the ecological dimension, and some other targets are sometimes included.

Social dimension

How is humanity doing in terms of SDG goals? In general, there have been significant improvements in people's living conditions during the 21st century. The unprecedented global economic growth of recent decades, especially in developing countries, has had a positive impact on many of the SDG targets that are considered to be in the sphere of social sustainability. Food security has improved (SDG 2) and more and more people have access to clean water and adequate sanitation (SDG 5), energy (SDG 7), education (SDG 4), and health care (SDG 3). Nevertheless, the problems remain massive and developments between and within regions are uneven. In many respects, the problems are concentrated in certain regions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Economic dimension

Economic thinking focused on sustainable development has undergone a major transformation over the decades. As described in the previous section, the 1972 Stockholm meeting emphasized the role of the economy in the demands of developing countries. At the time, the focus of the economic debate was simply on maximizing economic growth, enabling social goals. Forty years later, the economy was again the main theme of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, but now in the form of a “green economy”. Prior to that meeting, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) defined the green economy

“as one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a green economy can be thought of as one which is low-carbon, resource-efficient, and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in income and employment should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.” (UNEP 2011, page 2)

Efforts have also been made to direct the current SDG targets of the economic pillar in this direction. However, the guidelines for the world economy are not drawn up at the UN. As was noted before, the UN, and in particular its small environment programme UNEP, has no mandate to make a tangible impact on the structures and rules of the global economy. It can talk to major organizations in the world economy, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but UNEP has very little ability to change the current economic system it has criticized. This is one of the reasons why the need to set up an international environmental organization with a strong international mandate has been talked about for decades.

Apart from these objectives in the various dimensions, the SDGs also include cooperation and partnership, which in most cases is not placed under any one pillar but is intended to be a cross-cutting element in all the other goals.

 

Criticism of the SDGs 

The Sustainable Development Goals have been criticized for just about everything. The goals have been considered to be too numerous in the current situation, which would require more prioritization – or too few for the range of problems facing the world today.

Criticism has also been levelled at the failure to break the goals down into measurable components. Similarly, the real effectiveness of the goals has been questioned because of their non-binding nature. 

It has also been considered unclear who is ultimately responsible for pursuing the SDGs, and what resources will be used to achieve them. It has been estimated that achieving the SDGs will cost many times the amount of the aid target set for countries (and even the target is far from being met).

One major criticism has been that the indicators set for the SDGs do not actually measure what they are intended to measure. This has been taken into account in particular in regard to the ecological pillar. In other words, it has been argued that although a significant number of indicators have been defined for the SDGs, many of which refer to the state of the environment, and although a country-by-country analysis of these indicators suggests a relatively positive current state of the environment, in reality, the state of the environment is degrading. Indeed, Zeng et al. conclude their article in Nature Sustainability with a rather crushing assessment: There are fundamental shortcomings in the ability of the indicators set to protect biodiversity, which highlights the need to include indicators that measure the real state and threats of global biodiversity. If these mistakes are not remedied, the SDGs can contribute to the destruction of the environment in the name of sustainable development.

However, the problems mentioned above are, at least in principle, solvable, although solving them would require, for example, the introduction of new and better indicators. Perhaps the most serious criticism of the SDGs, however, has been the inconsistency of the goals in relation to each other. The crux of the criticism is the same as the one we started with in the introduction to sustainable development: according to the critics, the economic and ecological pillars of sustainable development cannot be reconciled.

Synergies and trade-offs of the SDGs

Achieving the SDGs would be a huge improvement, at least for the well-being of people – and possibly also of the non-human nature. However, already since the SDGs were being designed, the scientific community has pointed out that there are trade-offs between the different targets: promoting one target can undermine the chances of achieving another. 

Besides trade-offs, there are also synergies between SDGs. In other words, achieving one goal improves the chances of achieving another. As already stated in the third part of the course, for example, improving the status of women (SDG 5) through quality education (SDG 4) and improving sexual and reproductive health (SDG 5, target 5.6.), especially in developing countries, reduces population growth, which has positive effects on mitigating climate change (SDG 13) and biodiversity loss (SDGs 14 & 15).

Achieving planetary well-being is difficult precisely because the selected development measures should improve the current state in terms of both the social and ecological dimensions, and in a very short timeframe. For example, limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times will create both synergies and trade-offs with sustainability goals, but in different ways – depending on the type of measures chosen. According to the IPCC, in particular, there are synergies between SDG objectives 3 (well-being), 7 (sustainable energy), 11 (sustainable cities and communities), 12 (sustainable consumption), and 14 (life below water). IPCC considers that pursuing climate targets will have trade-offs with SDGs 1 (poverty), 2 (hunger), 6 (clean water), and 7 (sustainable energy), unless special attention is paid to their relationship.

There are several different possible pathways to mitigating climate change. Therefore, there is considerable uncertainty about the link between the fight against climate change and the SDG objectives. Some pathways put forward by the IPCC emphasise rapid reductions in emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases. Other paths emphasise the removal of already emitted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (carbon dioxide removal, CDR), which can be achieved, for example, through afforestation. However, afforestation can compete with the land required for food production, which is just one example of the potential conflict. 

Measures to limit climate change will require significant investments if the change is to be limited to 1.5 degrees. The IPCC estimates that the energy system transition will require investments worth approximately $ 2.4 trillion (thousand billion) per year between 2016 and 2035. Compared to these investments, the investments needed to protect those in need (for example, the policy solutions required to guarantee food production in the afforestation example mentioned above) are clearly lower.

As already mentioned above, perhaps the most fundamental contradiction in the sustainable development agenda lies deep between the economic and ecological pillars. For example, the report by Dasgupta (2021, 119), which has received much attention, underscores a well-known paradox: Without economic growth, there are no funds to reduce our ecological footprint, which in turn is known to grow alongside economic growth. Dasgupta criticizes the fact that, for example, international climate negotiations are based on the premise that curbing CO₂ emissions, eradicating poverty, or achieving sustainable development cannot be achieved without economic growth. In Dasgupta's view, these premises also underlie the Sustainable Development Goals.

Scientific articles examining the conflicts and synergies between the SDGs are being published at an accelerating pace. Most of these examine only some of the goals in a limited geographical area, usually at country level. There are only a few systematic reviews of all objectives for all countries. One such is an article by Pradhan and partners published in Earth's Future in 2017. Their study showed that the most typical discrepancy in a comparison of 227 countries is found between Goal 3, well-being, and Goal 12, sustainable consumption and production. In practice, this means that where human well-being (as measured with the SDG indicators) is high, the material footprint (one indicator of sustainable consumption and production) is also high. In other words, we are locked in a situation where human well-being and material production and consumption go hand in hand. SDG 12, sustainable consumption and production, was the most at odds with the other targets in this analysis. 

The message from the authors is simple: developed countries offer better human well-being on average, but have a larger environmental and material footprint, which needs to be significantly reduced to meet the SDG 12 relating to sustainable consumption and production. This will be difficult, but it is possible: not least because, according to the results of Pradhan et al., there are also countries in the world where this connection has already been broken by past and current policies. In any case, breaking the link between material growth and human well-being is a prerequisite for planetary well-being, which we will address in the next section of the course.

So far, we have little understanding of the cross-border synergies and conflicts between SDG objectives (spill-over effect). However, it is well understood that if the Agenda 2030 goal of global well-being and a healthy planet is to be achieved, one country cannot achieve the SDGs at the expense of others. When looking at the current achievement of the SDGs by country, the Nordic countries Finland, Sweden, and Denmark score the highest. Other rich OECD countries, with few exceptions, are also in the top 20 percent. However, the ranking is very different when looking at the extent to which countries have so-called cross-border spillover effects that undermine other countries’ achievement of the SDG objectives. In this comparison, the OECD countries are doing poorly, and the leading Nordic countries are also only among the weakest quarter.

You can find much important and useful information on SDGs, their achievement, and spill-over effects by country here.

For reflection: were you already familiar with the SDG targets? Did your perception of the SDGs change as you read the text? You can share your reflections and discuss with other course participants on the page linked below.

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