In 2015, the United Nations set their 17 “Sustainable Development Goals” in the largest consultation marathon in their history. A study now shows: Not only did the UN’s sustainability strategy have little effect – in some areas it even makes the situation worse. What exactly went wrong?
In fact, it is a miracle that this package was ever passed. For three years, representatives of the member states of the United Nations (UN) brooded over the goals for the new “Agenda 2030”, the most ambitious UN program of all, together with experts and non-governmental organizations. But after the biggest negotiation marathon in its history with thousands of participants, the UN had made it: In September 2015, the General Assembly in New York passed a total of 17 “Sustainable Development Goals”, also known as SDGs for short.
The mission: In 2030, the world should not only live more sustainably and healthily – but should also have created prosperity for everyone. The 17 goals include “End poverty” (SDG number 1), “Water and sanitation for all” (Number 6), “Responsible consumption” (Number 12) and “Combating climate change” (Number 13). All UN member states committed themselves to translating the “Agenda 2030” into national politics. Even Iran presented a new education initiative at the end of 2016, in line with goal number 4 (“education for all”) – the result was an outcry from the country’s religious hardliners.
But a new study now shows that almost seven years after the birth of the “Agenda 2030”, the world has hardly come any closer to its ambitious goals. There is little evidence that the SDGs have contributed to the fight against climate change, species extinction or inequality, according to the study by the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), which was published on Monday in the journal “Nature Sustainability”.
The so-called meta-study evaluated more than 3000 other studies on the 2030 Agenda in order to be able to understand their effect. The result is sobering. “We see no evidence that funds have been reallocated in favor of sustainable development, or that new or more ambitious laws have been introduced thanks to the SDGs, or that policies have become more stringent,” says Frank Biermann, German professor of “Global Sustainability Governance”. at Utrecht University and lead author of the study. “And the changes we see are often the result of processes that started well before the 2030 Agenda.”
The 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda started with a lot of optimism. After all, states, authorities, cities, experts and associations from all over the world have managed to agree on a common roadmap. So what went wrong?
The study points to two main reasons. On the one hand, some of the 17 goals may contradict each other. SDG number 8, for example, calls for “sustainable economic growth” and “productive full employment” – is that still compatible with the goal of protecting the environment? Many countries could be forced to make a choice here.
And on the other hand, the political process for translating the vaguely formulated goals into concrete politics at the national level is extraordinarily complex. What this “concrete policy” should look like is a matter of interpretation anyway. “We observe that many governments use the SDGs for their own purposes, interpreting them in idiosyncratic ways or implementing them selectively,” says assistant professor Marjanneke Vijge, a co-author of the study.
The result: According to the study, states and companies have so far mainly used the “Agenda 2030” for their own PR purposes. In a way, then, the well-intentioned ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ make things worse rather than better. After all, globally operating companies adorn themselves with their sustainability initiatives, which, however, only change very little in concrete terms – the so-called “greenwashing”.
The UN goals give the corporations the perfect template for this, and many have even hired their own “SDG Officers”. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that SDG-related rhetoric is being used to obfuscate ‘business as usual’,” says Thomas Hickmann of Lund University in Sweden, who collaborated on the study.
The criticism of the sustainability strategy of the UN is not new. For one thing, it’s expensive: various estimates put it at least $2.5 trillion a year to achieve all 17 goals by 2030. “Pure fantasy,” said the British magazine “Economist” back in 2016. And the think tank “Global Policy Forum” came to the conclusion in an interim assessment in December 2020 that progress had been made at the local level. On the other hand, according to the balance sheet, “many trends worldwide point in the wrong direction.”
The new study by the University of Utrecht also emphasizes that there are “modest successes” to report. Civil society has become louder and more demanding, movements such as “Fridays for Future” have gained influence, they say. But “after two years in a decisive decade for the future of mankind on earth” one thing is needed now, the authors judge: “Fundamental changes.”
