[17][18]:616 In response to a growing awareness of the depletion of timber resources in England, John Evelyn argued, in his 1662 essay Sylva, that "sowing and planting of trees had to be regarded as a national duty of every landowner, in order to stop the destructive over-exploitation of natural resources." Regional analyses have revealed that what accounts for human well-being varies greatly according to regional and socio-economic context; policy efforts must therefore be differentiated. Other strategies include erecting sustainable food systems, labor market energization, inclusive education, and supporting research in the energy sector. Alves, M. W. F. M. & Mariano, E. B. Behav. 70, 425433 (2010). Sustainable development, on the other hand, aims to create growth and progress through the addition of physical, economic, environmental, and social components that can improve quality of life without depleting resources for the future. This article is published in collaboration with [was first published by] UNA-UK. When looking at the relationship between SDGs and well-being by region we detect further levels of heterogeneity in how individual SDGs relate to well-being in different contexts. 2, 242247 (2019). Authors may speak of three pillars, dimensions, components, aspects,[30] perspectives, factors, or goals. This paper has studied the empirical relationship between the Sustainable Development Goals and subjective well-being using data from the SDG Index and the Gallup World Poll. Pradhan, P., Costa, L., Rybski, D., Lucht, W. & Kropp, J. P. A systematic study of sustainable development goal (SDG) interactions. Public Econ. An emerging theme suggests that although many countries are making progress in closing key development gaps, new fissures are opening just as quickly. UNESCO formulated a distinction between the two concepts as follows: "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. Human development can be thought of as broad as or broader than the 2030 Agenda. Source: Report of the Secretary-General, "Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals", E/2017/66 [88] The Paris Agreement exemplifies efforts of political will on a global level, a multinational agreement between 193 parties [89] intended to strengthen the global response to climate change by reducing emissions and working together to adjust to the consequent effects of climate change. No new ethic is required. [36] In 1987, the economist Edward Barbier published the study The Concept of Sustainable Economic Development, where he recognized that goals of environmental conservation and economic development are not conflicting and can be reinforcing each other. Human well-being is at the core of the 2030 Agenda12: the SDGs aim to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity, equality and in a healthy environment4. Thus, one might expect to find a positive correlation between the SDGs and SWB. Acad. The sustainable development debate is based on the assumption that societies need to manage three types of capital (economic, social, and natural), which may be non-substitutable and whose consumption might be irreversible. The SDGs have become a set of guiding principles used to ensure that development is environmentally low impact, socially just, and economically efficient and fair, as well as to justify interventions. 131, 523533 (2016). 50 pilot countries are preparing their country initiative on ESD for 2030 Stories Story ASPnet schools in Greece integrate art and culture to promote education for sustainable development 12 May 2023 [54][55], There is a connection between ecosystems and biodiversity. [81], The 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report discussed how ambitious climate change mitigation policies have created negative social and economical impacts when they are not aligned with sustainable development goals. Public Econ. Limitations in collecting data for SDG indicators hinder full assessment of progress towards SDGs. Others argue it is a necessary reflection of the complexity of life. The Human Development Index (HDI) provides an alternative single-number measure, capturing progress in three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and living standards. Bennett, N. J. et al. OECD. This, in turn, influenced people like Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the US Forest Service, whose approach to forest management was driven by the idea of wise use of resources, and Aldo Leopold whose land ethic was influential in the development of the environmental movement in the 1960s. The relationship between countries well-being and material footprint may well be explained by economic development, as countries with higher GDPs tend to produce and consume more, which is usually associated with higher living standards. This suggests that the underlying measures for climate action are strongly correlated with the level of economic development in the first place which, in turn, drives the relationship with well-being. Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a term used by the United Nations and is defined as education that encourages changes in knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for all. harvesting wood from forests at a rate that maintains the biomass and biodiversity). Sci. Lehr, U., Nitsch, J., Kratzat, M., Lutz, C. & Edler, D. Renewable energy and employment in Germany. Developed countries' citizens consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita per year, ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some developed countries with resource consumption levels far beyond what is likely sustainable. & Schor, J. Azen, R. & Budescu, D. V. The dominance analysis approach for comparing predictors in multiple regression. Lamb, W. F. Which countries avoid carbon-intensive development?. Nat. We analyse the quadratic relationship between the two, demonstrating that a higher SDG Index score correlates more strongly with higher SWB at higher levels of the SDG Index. OECD. These regional correlations need to be taken with due caution given the relatively low number of observations available but, taken together, Table1 paints a vivid picture of the varied and complex ways in which the SDGs relate to human well-being and how these pathways are highly context specific. Shinbrot, Xoco A., Kate Wilkins, Ulrike Gretzel, Gillian Bowser. Table1 reveals that SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (climate action) have, in fact, strong negative correlations with self-reported measures of human well-being. Hence, governments spread the message that we can have it all at the same time, i.e. Smart cities are actively moving towards greener urban ecosystems and better environmental management. [28], The Rio Protocol was a huge leap forward: for the first time, the world agreed on a sustainability agenda. This event is intended as an opportunity for public dialogue to reflect on the evolution of the policy discourse on . The combination of carbon taxes and incentives for renewable energy, combined with ambitious social policy, has allowed the Nordic countries to transition away from fossil fuels, without punishing low-income families with higher energy bills41,42. In other words, the SDGs provide a development destination. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegra, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Lschke, V. Mller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Palgrave Commun. & Meadows, D. L. The Limits to Growth: the 30-Year Update (Universe Books, New York, 2004). Nonetheless, in 2015 the international community rallied around the idea, and sustainable development gained further exposition with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as part of the broader 2030 Agenda. [85] Some hidden issues are women's lack of self-confidence, impeding access to leadership roles, but men can potentially play a role as allies for women's leadership. These principles apply to development of all scales and in all locations, whether it is the construction of a hydroelectric dam in the Amazon or a plantation of trees in Africa. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a globally agreed tool for assessing development progress. The SDGs comprise 17 goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators. Several indicators are selected to monitor the progress towards each goal, positioning them between the worst (0) and the target outcome (100). New, M., D. Reckien, D. Viner, C. Adler, S.-M. Cheong, C. Conde, A. Constable, E. Coughlan de Perez, A. Lammel, R. Mechler, B. Orlove, and W. Solecki, 2022: Decision Making Options for Managing Risk. The sustainable development of a country may come at a cost to other countries, or the actions of countries may influence the well-being in others56. J. Econ. World Commission on Environment and Development. 96, 869880 (2012). [3][4] The concept of sustainable development nowadays has a focus on economic development, social development and environmental protection for future generations. Yet the two strands of research have largely been separate and this paper shows how they can learn from each other. Thereby fostering through Sustainable Development Poverty alleviation, Gender equality, Capacity building, Clean technology, Clear institutional framework, Economic growth and development . Hopwood, B., Mellor, M. & OBrien, G. Sustainable development: mapping different approaches. 119, 482515 (2009). Two steps forward, one step back - where are we heading with gender equality? Moreover, these negative correlations appear to hold for each one of the worlds regions and therefore merit more academic and policy attention. Human development is essentially what sustainability advocates want to sustain and without sustainability, human development is not true human development. It suggests that countries which have a smaller per capita material footprintand are therefore performing well on SDG12are associated with lower levels of SWB. As such, in the Supplementary Information section we also report on the relationship between the SDG Index and measures of emotional well-being (see Figure S1 and FigureS2). The authors declare no competing interests. The dominance of a goal is calculated as the weighted average marginal contribution to the explained variance that the goal makes across all models in which the goal is included. Announcement: 2021/22 Human Development Report set to be released on 8 September 2022. SDG 13 asks that countries take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by curbing emissions. When looking at the SDGs individually, we pick up even more variation in how some SDGs are more strongly correlated than others with well-being. The environmental efficiency of well-being: a cross-national analysis. [92], Taking into account the pandemic is also something that needs to be considered in the SDG process. 1, 8895 (2018). At the same time, we discover much heterogeneity in how some of the SDGs relate to well-being. CAS This method, called dominance analysis, investigates the relative contribution to the variance explained in well-being (R2) for a given set of predictorsin this case the 17 SDGs11. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasizes that broad public participation in decision-making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. The results for Sub-Saharan Africa (N=38) point towards the Social SDGs playing the key role in explaining regional differences. All mean the same thing in this context. Roberts, J. T. et al. It was commissioned by the Club of Rome and written by a group of scientists led by Dennis and Donella Meadows of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Google Scholar. Trade-offs between social and environmental sustainable development goals. If this is problematic for the HDI, built from just four indicators, then imagine the uproar if one tried a similar approach with the SDGs 232 indicators. In Table1 we report on how each SDG correlates with well-being both globally and regionally. [86], Globally, the lack of political will is a barrier to achieving sustainable development. [110][111] ESD is a component of measurement in an indicator for Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG) for "responsible consumption and production". The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Sustainable development and human well-being. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now have concrete targets (unlike the results from the Rio Process) but no methods for sanctions. How does human development relate to the SDGs? J. Two steps forward, one step back - where are we heading with gender equality? One of the strategies proposed towards SDG in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic is green management, or the government strategy of utilizing resources such as water and energy with the intention to change resource consumption behavior. 2023 United Nations Development Programme. This, for example, entails using water sustainably, using renewable energy and sustainable material supplies (e.g. A recent report by the OECD attempts to address this challenge by proposing climate change mitigation through a well-being lens, putting people at the centre of climate action37. NBER Working Paper 26529. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26529 (2019). Dev. It is also important to reiterate that variance decomposition analyses are constrained by their methods and the number of observations. Acad. But differences between these children are widening when we consider the quality of that education, or whether they have access to other schooling, such as early childhood education. Plan. Dominance analysis calculates the relative contribution to the variance explained in well-being (R-squared) for the 17 SDGs. 40, 931949 (2011). It has been suggested that because of rural poverty and overexploitation, environmental resources should be treated as important economic assets, called natural capital. the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Some commentators see the quantity of targets as a weakness. The general takeaway from the regional variance decomposition analyses is that there is much regional heterogeneity hidden behind a global analysis, with the regional context driving which SDGs are most important in explaining the variance in well-being between countries in the region. It is also important that we get ahead of the curve to see what important gaps will emerge in the next decade, even if they are not included in the SDGs. To obtain Internet Explorer). Empirical results over the period 1980 to 2006 show that many of the lowest performing countries on the HDI also face problems of weak unsustainability, as measured by genuine savings. 26, 663671 (2018). ESD consequently promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way. [62] Careful resource management can be applied at many scales, from economic sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and industry, to work organizations, the consumption patterns of households and individuals, and the resource demands of individual goods and services.[63][64]. One important assumption being made in such an analysis is that it forces the SDGs to explain all of the variance in well-being between countries. This model of unlimited personal and GDP growth may be over. and JavaScript. More cautious policies are therefore needed to ensure that progress towards SDG12 and SDG13 also safeguards livelihoods and well-being30,31. J.-E.D.N. Clean. Dietz, T., Rosa, E. A. Retrieved from, "Biodiversity and human well-being: an essential link for sustainable development". Jackson, T. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan, London, 2009). Figure1 shows the scatterplot for the SDG Index and SWB for all countries in the dataset. Two of the biggest challenges facing mankind this century will be to break the link between high human development and strongly unsustainable damage to natural capital on the one hand, requiring a very significant and rapid decarbonisation of their economies, and assisting countries with very low human development to overcome weak unsustainability by raising their investment levels into all forms of capital on the other. Parallel discussions have centred around the need to move away from GDP as an assessment of countries performance towards measures that better capture levels of happiness and well-being5. Local Environ. "Unlocking women's sustainability leadership potential: Perceptions of contributions and challenges for women in sustainable development.". This figure paints a picture that aligns closely with the correlation coefficients reported in Table1. [3] The report included a definition of "sustainable development" which is now widely used:[3]:Chapter 2. There are also issues with the aggregation of goals into a single number15, nonetheless there is consensus that the SDGI provides the most comprehensive picture of national progress on the SDGs16. Res. "[38]:2. Some of the challenges the planet is grappling with are new, such as understanding what the rise in artificial intelligence might mean for the labour force a decade from now. It is fair to say that the HDI has not evolved as dramatically as the worlds development challenges have over the past 30 years. 2 shows the negative correlation between achieving SDG 12 and subjective well-being. Sustainable development and subjective well-being, a scatterplot for the overall SDGI score (mean of total SDG score, where all goals are weighted equally) and SWB score for all countries in the data set. MDPI AG. Regional analyses are limited by the relatively low number of observations available. The arms trade must be strictly regulated (apart from the USA and the former USSR, of course, France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands are, in monetary terms, among the top exporters of conventional weapons in the world). While national plans will differ, in all cases green growth strategies need to go hand-in-hand with the main pillars of action to promote social equity: more intensive human capital investment, inclusive employment promotion, and well-designed tax/transfer redistribution policies. CAS [93] The COVID-19 pandemic has provided substantial roadblocks towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Energy Policy 36, 108117 (2008). We leverage the SDG Index which measures countries progress towards achieving the SDGs10. Sci. [48] By 2050, humanity could consume an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year (three times its current amount) unless the economic growth rate is decoupled from the rate of natural resource consumption. As such, these results are meant to be seen as cautious exploration of large-scale trends that are correlational in nature and thus open to potential reverse causality and omitted variable bias. This paper explores the empirical links between achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and subjective well-being. Relative importance of SDG groups in explaining the variance in subjective well-being between countries. Policies such as investment in public services to moderate private consumption27 and harnessing productivity gains to reduce working hours45 have been proposed. The analyses done in this paper rely on standard univariate linear correlations and OLS regressions. Stud. [29][9]:137. Krueger, R. & Gibbs, D. The Sustainable Development Paradox: Urban Political Economy in the United States and Europe (Guilford Press, New York, 2007). Given the large number of variables that make up the SDG Index, we find that leaving in or taking out the SWB variable does not meaningfully impact any results. [68] "Growth" generally ignores the direct effect that the environment may have on social welfare, whereas "development" takes it into account. O'Donnell, G., Deaton, A., Halpern D., Durand, M. & Layard. Old concerns will continue. We draw on data from the Gallup World Poll, which continually surveys 160 countries representing about 98% of the worlds adult population. When Ursula comes ashore in human form disguised as Vanessa (Jessica Alexander), she wears Ariel's voicethe price she paid for her legsaround her neck in a shell locket. . ISSN 2045-2322 (online). It is our job to ensure that human development thinking will continue to shape the global development landscape for the rest of the 21st century. Unpacking the SDGs by looking at how each SDG relates to well-being shows, in most cases, a strong positive correlation. J. Detailed empirical work, however, shows the relationship to be more nuanced than might first appear. The indicators underlying SDG12 measure the per capita material footprint of each country, accounting for municipal solid waste (kg/year/capita), E-waste generated (kg/capita), production-based SO2 emissions (kg/capita), imported SO2 emissions (kg/capita), nitrogen production footprint (kg/capita), net imported emissions of reactive nitrogen (kg/capita), non-recycled municipal solid waste (MSW in kg/person/year times recycling rate)10. Figure5 first shows the results for how well these SDG groups explain the variance between all countries. Climate Change Mitigation: Policies and Progress (OECD Publishing, Paris, 2015). It is an approach that can be applied in different places, by different people and in different ways to tackle different issues. The 2030 Agenda is an opportunity to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure lasting peace and prosperity. In Europe (N=33), and especially in the countries of the former Soviet Union (N=15), we find the great importance of the Economic SDGs in explaining regional variation in well-being.
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