The victims of unsustainability: a challenge to sustainable development goals

Abstract

Environmental unsustainability is due to both structural features and historically specific characteristics of industrial capitalism resulting in specific patterns of production and consumption, as well as population growth. Sustainability literature criticises the established corporate and political power hegemonies, interested in maintaining economic growth, as well as inability or unwillingness of citizen-consumers to counteract these hegemonic tendencies. Yet, official policies are still targeted at social and economic 'development' as a panacea for unsustainability challenges. Instead, renewed accent on social and economic objectives are outlined by a set of sustainable development goals (SDG) that include objectives of fighting poverty, promoting better health, reducing mortality, and stimulating equitable economic growth. What is less commonly critiqued is the underlying morality of unsustainability and ethical questions concerned with the 'victims of unsustainability' outside of socioeconomic discourse. The achievement of SDG goals, as will be further elaborated on in this article, is unlikely to lead to greater social equality and economic prosperity, but to a greater spread of unsustainable production and consumption, continuous economic as well as population growth that has caused environmental problems in the first place and further objectification of environment and its elements. This article argues that an invocation of ethical duty toward environment and its elements is required in order to move beyond the current status quo. Such ethical approach to unsustainability can effectively address the shortcomings of the mainstream sustainability discourse that is mainly anthropocentric and therefore fails to identify the correct locus of unsustainability.

Structuring Ethical Interpretations of the Sustainable Development Goals—Concepts, Implications and Progress

“…After the review of 68 abstracts, 37 full articles were selected, and 12 of them were kept for analysis. Except for [22], no articles were found that related the SDGs explicitly to environmental ethics. The 12 selected articles exemplify interpretations within the environmental ethics framework rather than provide an overview of existing SDGs literature.…”

“…She discusses the role of neglected and disadvantaged stakeholders in the SDG debate, including nature as a "third party." Kopina's interpretation is highly normative, promoting for example anti-capitalist views to protect the "victims of unsustainability", advocating "an invocation of ethical duty toward environment and its elements" [22] or fronting a claim for unity: "[W]e have to be on the same page and speak of the same meaning. In a finite world, we need to accept once and for all that sustainability cannot be about further growth.…”

“…In a finite world, we need to accept once and for all that sustainability cannot be about further growth. This challenge remains critical, though still denied" [22]. Further, she criticizes injustice between species, the commodification of nature and privileging human well-being [38].…”

Indicators and tools for assessing sustainability impacts of the forest bioeconomy

“…Therefore, assessing sustainability to ensure that Earth will be able to support its diverse life forms in the future has become critically important. Unsustainability may result from (over) emphasizing one dimension over the others (Klooster 2010;Villamagna et al 2013;Kopnina 2016) and thus, considering the 3D approach becomes essential. Some recent studies on the forest-based bioeconomy and its multidimensional impacts can be found for example in Heink andKowarik (2010), den Herder et al (2012), Leskinen et al (2012), Cambero and Sowlati (2014) and Jäppinen et al (2014).…”

“…Sustainability has been approached from many angles, such as compensation, thresholds and strong or weak sustainability (see Ayres et al 2001;De Mare et al 2015;Janeiro and Patel 2015). The very concept of sustainability has also been criticized for its anthropocentricity (see Kopnina 2016). It is important to notice that the conditions in all the 3Ds do vary between locations -yet, some impacts have a global reach (i.e.…”