The UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals relate to the stewardship of Earth and the interconnectedness of humans, our systems, and the ecosphere. All the goals overlap, but three that are particularly linked are SDGs 7, 11, and 12. Those are: Affordable and Clean Energy, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Responsible Consumption and Production. The benchmarks within these goals are numerous, but in the most basic sense the original plan is to, by 2030, increase the share of renewable energy globally, provide universal access to it, ensure adequate housing and basic services, create affordable and sustainable transport systems, and sustainably manage the use of natural resources.
As with other SDGs, these goals will not be met by the deadline. But the actions that must be taken to improve human life and the health of the planet are perpetual. The work that needs to be done today will need to continue beyond 2030, beyond 2040, and onward. Standing in the way is anti-science disinformation, warfare and social breakdown, calcified institutional frameworks, the weakening of governing systems, the pursuit of limitless profit by multinational and national corporations, and the resistance of political parties pretending—in a year of shattered heat records—that the climate crisis is either a hoax or a problem bound to be fixed through eventual innovation.
The nature of democracies means that retrenchment often wipes out progress. Many of the people who are most harmed by a decaying environment vote for the very policies that are destroying their possibilities for a livable future—and if not theirs, then their children's, and certainly their grandchildren's. This is no surprise, considering most politicians place the economy on the opposite side of the voting spectrum from the environment. Even electoral victories for parties that promise greener policies are no guarantee of action. A change in political or economic circumstances, such as those brought by COVID-19, can cause governments to lag on achievement.
Even so, the awareness that a greener future is a necessity is growing. According to a recent McKinsey and Nielsen survey, 78% of Americans say a sustainable lifestyle is important to them. How many are acting on that desire is harder to quantify, but there's no doubt people are increasingly electing to live more sustainably through efforts such as using less plastic, conserving water, eating less meat, growing more food, carpooling, and other lifestyle choices. Such individuals have opted to forgo a certain amount of convenience and pleasure for the sake of people they will never meet. Since our societies principally sell convenience and pleasure, it's a laudable path to take.
But one of the most direct paths toward a greener future is to support environmental nonprofits. Unfortunately, such groups currently receive as little as 2% of all charitable donations. In terms of current public concerns, a 2022 Pew Research poll showed the environment lagging behind numerous other issues for U.S. voters. The UN hopes to build more understanding around issues of sustainability and encourage action from those governments that remain receptive to facts, but the on-the-ground work of shaping the understanding of the voters may be largely up to the environmental nonprofit sector.
Some of that education may involve increasing the public's understanding of what sustainability is. The exact definition is still evolving, but sustainability is now mostly agreed to contain social, environmental, and economic dimensions. Socially, it means that people do not face structural barriers in trying to achieve meaningful, productive, and healthy lives. Environmentally, it means preserving and repairing the natural world. Economically, it means—very broadly—that the raw materials needed for economic activity are used in such a way that they are regenerated. Some experts believe sustainability should include additional distinct dimensions, and clearly, tensions exist between economic and environmental sustainability.
Tensions also exist regarding the different ways in which sustainability is measured. Yale's Environmental Performance Index, for example, takes into account a tightly bounded set of factors that result in Denmark, the U.K., and Finland landing on top. On the other hand, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network ranks the U.K. outside its top ten. Still another ranking system, the Sustainable Development Index, includes life expectancy, schooling, and CO2 emissions per capita, which situates countries like Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, and Cuba at the top, with the highly industrialized U.K. languishing in 128th place. Such rankings, while sometimes informative, can lead to horse race-style thinking. Countries that score well often use those scores as marketing tools, while those that score poorly often seek to undermine the authority of rating organizations.
Sometimes those countries' critiques are pertinent. When India was ranked at the bottom of Yale's study last year, incensed Indian government officials and environmental experts called into question Yale's methodology and described it as unscientific. Chandra Busan, CEO of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST) commented, “If you are middle income or a poor country, if you are in Asia or Africa, you are bad environmentally. But if you are a rich country, you consume a lot, but your local environment is clean, you are the best in the world.” Questions such as these need to be addressed in order to facilitate international agreement on methods and means to achieve sustainability.
The waters begin to get even muddier when corporations join the sustainability party. Companies have long attempted to co-opt the term and conflate it with slogans such as “buy local” in order to promote the idea that greening the planet comes down mainly to what one purchases (that company's products, of course). Another strategy is to simply hide unsustainable practices and hope to not be caught—or at least to profit so much that any fines are dwarfed by comparison. This was the intent of Volkswagen in 2015 when it used computer software to cheat on emissions tests in what is now known as “Dieselgate.” That episode cost the company $30 billion in fines, settlements, and buyback costs.
Volkswagen also saw its sales dip precipitously. It was an indication why some corporations bend and stretch the meaning of sustainability—because green branding confers market advantages. According to Forbes magazine, 62% of people aged twenty-three to thirty-eight try to purchase sustainably. In addition, publicly traded companies are under increasing pressure to provide environmental metrics to prospective investors. But while purchasing and investing habits are part and parcel of sustainability, it isn't just about which companies one supports—it's about reducing consumption across the board. Climate journalist Kendra Pierre-Louis and others have warned that we cannot buy and invest our way to a green future. The behavior of individuals, companies, and governments must change.
The SDGs represent powerful advocacy for that change, especially in the industrialized West. SDGs 7, 11, and 12 recommend intervention into multiple aspects of society, industry, and, unavoidably, politics. Along with the aims mentioned at top, other goals include greater international cooperation in clean energy research and technology, cutting global food waste in half, increased management of chemicals and wastes throughout their life cycle, shifting toward more sustainable tourism, restructuring taxation and subsidies in fossil fuel industries, providing safe and affordable housing for all, upgrading slums, safeguarding cultural and natural heritage sites, and supporting the least developed countries, financially and technically.
With all these pressing needs, now is the worst time for global cooperation to break down, but due to an authoritarian drift in the West and a looming confrontation between the U.S. and China, that's what seems to be happening. The U.S. and China are economically interlinked yet seem to have no blueprint on the table for co-existence, only for domination and defeat. In the U.K. and other countries, governments are eyeing future unrest as much as future sustainability by passing laws that subject environmental protestors to ever more severe punishments. It's as if they see more Greta Thunbergs on the horizon and are preemptively taking steps to prevent it.
Not on the horizon, but right in the middle of each day, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been one of the biggest blows to sustainable development. The $200 billion in war profits reaped by the global oil industry has been a huge reversal to hopes for a green energy transition. Governments have doubled subsidies for fossil fuels and approved a slate of new extraction projects. And in a setback for social sustainability, as reported in an analysis by Unearthed and Lighthouse Reports, the top ten hedge funds in the world have made almost $2 billion in profits from war-triggered food price spikes that have pushed 33 million people into acute hunger.
Nevertheless the SDGs make clear that setbacks are part of the process of crafting a better future, and the push forward must continue. Sustainability asks us to avoid conflict and war, to work collaboratively rather than competitively, and to develop more environmentally sound ways to produce goods. Sustainability is also, unavoidably, about sharing—the sharing of resources, knowledge, planning, and capital. It requires reaching a higher level of collective intelligence. Sustainability seeks to meet the needs of living generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own, allowing our planet to be habitable far into the future. That makes it the challenge of our age, possibly the challenge of any human age.
- Read the Environmental Performance Index.
- Read previous articles in this series.