Big sustainable development goals have mostly flopped so far.
Will they do any better in the future?
How the world tries to reach sustainability really does matter. It helps determine the operating environment for companies and industries, including the energy industry. It affects the working and living environment of people around the globe.
And to date, it’s been something of a train wreck.
In 2015, the United Nations adopted a list of 17 “Sustainable Development Goals,” all aimed at fulfillment by 2030. They haven’t gone well.
How Far Short?
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the annual goals report card for 2024 “shows the world is getting a failing grade.”
“Only 17 percent of the SDG targets are on track. Progress on over one third has stalled or even regressed,” he noted.
Businesses and industries also have struggled with their own sustainability goals. Companies including Amazon, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Google/Alphabet, Unilever, Nike and Bank of America have scaled back their sustainability ambitions or missed targets.
Kenneth Pucker is professor of practice at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a former chief operating officer of manufacturer and retailer Timberland. Writing in the Harvard Business Review in August, he observed:
“In the past 18 months, many companies have initiated a sobering retreat from their prior commitments to sustainability, related to both the environment and people.”
“These changes coincide with corporate backsliding on an array of sustainability targets.
“For example, in light of increasing oil prices both BP and Shell cut their commitments to lower carbon emissions; footwear maker Crocs reset its target for net-zero carbon emissions back by a decade from 2030 to 2040; and Microsoft missed their carbon-reduction goals due to the growth of AI,” he noted.
An interesting pattern has emerged, almost across the board. Only about one in six sustainable development goals appears to be on track. Around half are making some progress, but not enough to be called successful. And a third or more have bombed.
Pucker observed, “in some ways, it’s good that companies are walking back ambitious climate goals, as many were fanciful to begin with. But success will only be realized if these unrealistic sustainability targets are replaced with immediate and meaningful action.”
SDG Origin Story
The UN began to set official and monitorable sustainability goals in the 1990s, first with six international development goals that grew out of its Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development.
Those were expanded into the UN’s eight Millenium Development Goals, with a target date of 2015.
Starting in 2012, and with the establishment of a dedicated working group in January 2013, the UN began to formulate the current 17 SDGs, aimed at fulfillment by 2030.
Those goals turned out to be more ideals than practical, near-term objectives.
The first three SDGs are:
- SDG1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
- SDG2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
- SDG3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages.
Clearly, the UN doesn’t expect to eliminate all poverty and hunger and create full global health by 2030. Having the high-level ideals allowed it to create targets or action items designed to move the world toward those aims. Here is a target for the first goal on poverty:
Target 1.2. By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national (i.e., local) definitions.
This is SDG7, on energy:
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
And this is a related target:
Target 7.3. By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency.
All of the UN goals have associated targets – in fact, 169 targets altogether. And it is those targets that mostly aren’t being met. The UN’s 2024 Sustainable Development Goals report states:
“Among the assessable targets, only 17 percent display progress sufficient for achievement by 2030. Nearly half (48 percent) exhibit moderate to severe deviations from the desired trajectory, with 30 percent showing marginal progress and 18 percent moderate progress.
“Alarmingly, 18 percent indicate stagnation and 17 percent regression below the 2015 baseline levels.”
Cause of the Failure
According to the report, two major factors negatively affecting the SDGs were the COVID pandemic and the outbreak of regional conflicts: in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere around the world.
In his report introduction, Li Junhua, UN under-secretary general for economic and social affairs, commented:
“The lingering impacts of COVID-19, compounded by conflicts, climate shocks and economic turmoil, have aggravated existing inequalities. An additional 23 million people were pushed into extreme poverty and over 100 million more suffered from hunger in 2022 compared to 2019.
“While some health targets improved, overall global health progress has decelerated alarmingly since 2015. The COVID-19 pandemic has undone nearly 10 years of progress on life expectancy.”
He added, “around the world, wars are upending millions of lives, driving the highest number of refugees (37.4 million) and forcibly displaced people (nearly 120 million) ever recorded. Civilian casualties in armed conflicts rose by 72 percent between 2022 and 2023.”
Lack of investment also has stymied progress on the SDGs, according to the UN Trade and Development arm. Foreign direct investment in developing countries fell by 7 percent last year, it reported.
UNCTAD has calculated the world needs to overcome a total annual financing gap of about $4 trillion to achieve sustainable development.
In addressing poverty, the UN estimates that in 2023 almost 700 million people around the world subsisted on less than $2.15 a day, its poverty line for the poorest countries. Alleviating the worst global poverty could easily cost $1 billion a day.
While the UN expends a total of about $70 billion a year working through agencies like UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, its annual operating budget is roughly $3.6 billion.
Ideological Tensions
Frequent criticisms of the UN SDGs and targets include claims that they are overly broad and too numerous, that they lack accountability and enforcement, that they are poorly funded and that they need much more consistency and coherence.
In broad terms of moving toward successful fulfillment, the goals have been called long on “what” and “when,” but short on “how.”
Critics also have cited the difficulty of monitoring SDG progress accurately and transparently, given the qualitative nature of many targets and the fact of self-tracking and self-reporting by UN member nations.
Two other, more detailed responses to the UN’s SDGs have questioned their fundamental approach and rationale.
First, some observers say the goals advance a neoliberal agenda, promote centralized planning or reflect the aims and viewpoints of developed nations over developing nations.
Second, other critics believe that the SDGs are biased toward development, with negative environmental and social consequences from unneeded or inefficient development and over-consumption.
Netra Chhetri is a professor at Arizona State University, director of the school’s Center for Innovation and Development in Society and a leading thinker on global development, community and sustainability. He emphasized the need for local action and control on sustainability issues.
“Moving forward, sustainability efforts must increasingly prioritize grassroots innovation and place-based autonomy. Many of the most effective responses to socio-economic and environmental challenges come not from centralized institutions, but from communities actively navigating these issues,” Chhetri said.
“Localized, context-specific strategies are essential for ensuring the SDGs’ relevance and adaptability to diverse conditions. This shift toward local empowerment is critical for addressing the limitations of global solutions that often sideline the needs of the most vulnerable populations,” he added.
Arizona State describes its School of Sustainability, established in 2006, as the first comprehensive degree-granting program of its kind in the United States.
“To achieve the SDGs, universities and academic programs need to lead the charge in rethinking global systems, from economic models to energy production and governance structures,” Chhetri observed.
“This means moving away from growth-centric paradigms and toward models that value resilience, inclusivity and the long-term wellbeing of both people and the planet,” he said.
Some analysis holds that fundamental systems like capitalism need to evolve to address sustainable development. Peter Bakker is president and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a global organization of over 200 leading businesses working for transition to a sustainable world.
“There is an increasing awareness and recognition of the vital role that businesses and capital markets can have in realizing the ambitious targets set out in global agreements such as the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. We need to fundamentally reinvent capitalism and redefine the meaning of value creation,” he observed.
“The move to a capitalism of true value for all will accelerate, faster than anything else, the transformation toward (a projected) 9 billion-plus people all living well, within planetary boundaries,” Bakker noted.
Some critics of the SDGs argue that not all of the UN’s goals and targets are directly relevant to sustainable development. For instance, those critics tend to see gender equality and nondiscrimination as fairness issues, not development issues.
A common definition of the term sustainable development is “a way of growing and developing society that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
SDG8 targets economic growth but also includes a call for “full and productive employment and decent work for all.” If someone has an unfulfilling job, or even a terrible job, does that compromise development for future generations?
Rethinking Sustainability
Nobody knows for certain where sustainable development efforts are headed in the future. But here’s a rule of thumb: When things aren’t going well, look for a reboot.
Consulting and auditing firm Deloitte conducts an annual sustainability review of executive-level business leaders, people it calls “CxOs.”
“Companies are increasingly adopting a more holistic approach to sustainable development, moving beyond a sole focus on climate change. This shift is evident in the broader range of sustainability actions being implemented and the diverse benefits that companies are starting to recognize from these efforts,” said Steve Goldbach, sustainability leader for Deloitte US.
“According to Deloitte’s 2024 CxO Sustainability Report, executives are seeing value creation not just in environmental terms but also in business performance metrics such as supply chain efficiency, operating margins, and talent recruitment and retention,” he noted.
Goldbach predicted technology and innovation will have a critical role in the future of sustainability. Half of the CxOs Deloitte surveyed have already begun implementing technology solutions to help achieve climate or environmental goals, he said.
“This trend is expected to continue. The focus will likely expand to include the development of sustainable products and services, process optimization and comprehensive sustainability reporting,” Deloitte observed.
“In summary, the next generation of sustainability goals will likely be characterized by a more integrated approach that balances environmental sustainability with social equity and economic viability,” it added.
That might partly be a way of saying the concept of sustainable development itself needs to be sustainable, especially in economic return. Unprofitable sustainability is a nonstarter. Also, it’s helpful to remember that the 17 UN SDGs represent ideal outcomes rather than immediate objectives.
In July, the Brooking Institution policy group issued a working paper titled “How is the World Doing on the SDGs?” It presented a different perspective on sustainable development.
The authors found that the world has made considerable progress on sustainability, even if that progress has not met the UN’s lofty ideals.
“Our study examined 24 SDG-relevant, country-level indicators and started with a basic question: Have things improved since 2015? We found humanity-wide improvements for 18 – ranging from the enlargement of marine protected areas to expanded access to water and sanitation,” they reported.
The analysis looked at country-level trends across SDG-related indicators, based on sequential, time series data available for at least 100 countries in the past 10 years.
“We find that, despite the world’s deep and ongoing strains and shortfall in SDG ambitions, the human condition has improved on many fronts since 2015,” the authors said.
“Considering the range of crises engulfing the world since 2020, this counts as positive news,” they noted. “However, most of the trends were already in motion prior to 2015, so improvement alone does not meet the higher normative standards and planetary thresholds established in the SDGs.”