6.2.1 The SDG Agenda: Issues Concerning Peoples and Politics

Concerning the quality of the design of this agenda, this abundance of goals, targets and indicators has been criticized, because it makes the SDGs a plan overwhelmingly complicated to follow [Reference Sengupta12, Reference Stokstad15]. At the same time, despite this abundance of information, the vast majority of SDG targets have been accused of lacking clarity on who should do what [Reference Pogge16], clear measurements [Reference Stokstad15, Reference Pogge16], and time frames [Reference Stokstad15], a characteristic that can discourage their implementation [Reference Stokstad15].

In terms of environmental violence, the issues shown by this design – especially the lack of clarity on who should do what – can directly or indirectly trigger unfair and violent environmental policies (b–v. policies, e–structural v.) and violence between people(s) directly or indirectly over natural resources (a–v. between people), exacerbating harm and power differentials (i–differentials). An example of this can be seen in the recurring disagreement, at the Conference of Parties (COPs) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), about how responsibilities and costs should be divided between countries, for example, in the case of the funding for loss and damage [17]. Another example of this is the broader upstream issue that the whole SDG/sustainable development approach is based on a Western idea of development, which makes it intrinsically disrespectful toward non-Western cultures (f–cultural v.), especially those that have been historically oppressed by violence through colonization – an issue that concerns the concept of sustainable development itself, and that will be developed in 6.3.2.1.

However, the most debated controversy concerning the SDGs is another one: the contradictions between the different goals and, at times, even within the same goal. For example, Herrera [Reference Herrera21] points out implementation issues and contradictions within SDG 6, Clean water and sanitation, and between this SDG and other SDGs that can be pursued through the realization of dams and other water-polluting activities – namely, SDGs 7, Affordable and clean energy, and 9, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Also, Scherer et al. [Reference Scherer, Behrens, de Koning, Heijungs, Sprecher and Tukker18], Spaiser et al. [Reference Spaiser, Ranganathan, Swain and Sumpter19], and Swain [Reference Swain and Leal20] discuss whether or not the social SDGs are compatible with the environmental ones, finding that, while there are some solutions that can foster development and sustainability at the same time [Reference Spaiser, Ranganathan, Swain and Sumpter19], working on social goals often implies increased environmental impacts [Reference Scherer, Behrens, de Koning, Heijungs, Sprecher and Tukker18], and concluding that “the SDG agenda will fail as a whole if we continue with business as usual” [Reference Spaiser, Ranganathan, Swain and Sumpter19].

Indeed, one of the most important elements of the business as usual strategy is the pursuit of economic growth, which is part of the SDG 8, Decent work and economic growth. As Sengupta [Reference Sengupta12] argues, the SDG agenda does not answer the question “How are we to achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth while keeping in mind planetary boundaries?”, thus leaving unaddressed one of the main issues within the concept of sustainable development, the Issue of Economic Growth (see 6.3.1).

To attempt to solve these contradictions internal to the SDG agenda, some authors have pointed out the need to establish priorities between different targets [Reference Herrera21]; to prioritize those goals that also help the achievement of other goals, such as education [Reference Pongiglione22]; and to understand these goals from a system perspective, as well as the constraints, trade-offs, and social processes they imply [Reference Norström, Dannenberg, McCarney, Milkoreit, Diekert, Engström and Meng23]. These solutions, especially the adoption of a system perspective, appear to be a step in the right direction toward the pursuit of a reasonable balance, a balance in which goals are pursued with consideration toward the other goals, and goals are prioritized based on what works for the system. This being said, the prioritization of goals that also help the achievement of other goals might, in the author’s view, not be ideal because this would not necessarily ensure that the goals that are essential for the overall balance would be prioritized over non-essential ones.

Despite all these criticisms, it needs to be noted that the SDG agenda is the result of delicate negotiations among hundreds of countries and, thus, any change to them would need a lot of caution and be risky from a political perspective [Reference Stokstad15], potentially also resulting in violence ((a–v. between people), (b–v. policies), and/or (e–structural v.)).

Beside the controversies concerning the SDGs, the pursuit of sustainable development can pose challenges to the law of international trade [Reference Matsushita and Schoenbaum24] and can be more difficult, in general, to reconcile with the current policy, legal, and economic frameworks because of the “vagueness of the concept, the level of aggregation that is not adapted for pragmatic policy-making, the Western or Northern bias, and its voluntaristic and unrealistic view of the role of economic dynamics” [Reference Bruyninckx25]. The Western or Northern bias will be explored more in detail in 6.3.2.1.

6.2.2 Sustainable Development Goals and Technology

As we have seen, sustainable development revolves around a balance between human needs and planetary limits, while the definition of sustainable development proposed by the Brundtland Report [Reference Brundtland8] describes it in terms of a balance between the needs of present and future humans. Hence, sustainable development seems to revolve around two main pillars: humans and the environment. However, when it comes to the Sustainable Development Goals, that is, the implementation of sustainable development, some literature argues there is also a third key pillar: technology.

Indeed, when Hillerbrand [Reference Hillerbrand26] discusses SDG 7, Affordable and clean energy, she points out that the SDGs are based, not on two interconnected pillars only – humans and the environment – but on a third pillar as well, technology. According to Hillerbrand, the connections between society and technology have not been considered enough in the SDGs, leading to a failure in distinguishing between different kinds of technology, with the risk of falling into technological optimism or determinism.

Also, Sengupta [Reference Sengupta12] makes a discourse in which she seems to identify what can be considered an example of the issue presented by Hillerbrand [Reference Hillerbrand26]. Indeed, Sengupta [Reference Sengupta12] sees the SDG agenda as a missed opportunity, because it fails to support low-carbon solutions and to discourage high-carbon modes of production and consumption, and it tackles climate change with a technocratic approach, without stressing enough the links between SDG 13, Climate action, and the other SDGs.

If we add the environmental violence framework to the understanding of the relationship between humans, environment, and technology, we can see that technology can touch all of Lee’s forms of environmental violence because it can be involved in conflicts (a–v. between people), policies (b–v. policies), and damage to the environment that can also have negative consequences for humans (c–v. from nature, d–v. from damage). In addition, the production, use, and distribution of technology can reflect power differentials (i–power differentials), cultural and structural violence (e–structural violence, f–cultural violence), as well as be associated with further increases in pollution (g–pollution). Furthermore, the more importance humanity attributes to technological development and the more dependent humanity becomes on technology, the closer humanity becomes to creating a fifth form of environmental violence: the prioritization of technology at the expense of both human well-being and the environment. In the author’s view, as long as humans see technology as a means to improve their well-being or solve environmental issues and not as an end in itself, technology will, at most, be a contributor to environmental violence, which has only humans and the environment as causes and/or ends of environmental violence. However, the moment technology becomes an end to be pursued at the expense of human well-being and the environment, technology stops being a mere contributor, and becomes itself a cause and/or an end of environmental violence. The author does not see this additional form of environmental violence as a current reality, but as a direction humanity might be heading to, foreshadowed by some examples in which humans are already preferring more technological solutions, even when they come at the expense of human well-being and the environment. For example, the diffusion of smartphones (goods we lived comfortably without until not long ago) is linked to resource and people exploitation [27], including aspects that could be considered environmental violence. Also, Hillerbrand [Reference Hillerbrand26] and Sengupta [Reference Sengupta12] seem to implicitly suggest an example of questionable adoption of technological solutions, arguing that the use of technological solutions to tackle environmental problems might at times come at the expense of the big picture.

These reflections lead to the necessary addition of a caveat to Hillerbrand’s reasoning: While considering three pillars – humans, environment, and technology – can help our analysis, the third pillar – technology – should not be mistaken as equal to the other two in importance or in role. Indeed, while sustainable development aims at taking care of both human beings and the environment, it is not aimed at taking care of technology, or supporting a certain level or type of technology. If we look at the essence of what sustainable development means, technology can play the role of a means to the pursuit of a balance between human needs and planetary limits, but it should not be an end in itself and, thus, it should come second, after the other two. This is important to keep in mind, as not doing so could jeopardize the pursuit of the delicate balance between human needs and planetary limits, as well as result in the fifth form of environmental violence described earlier.

6.3.1 The Issue of Economic Growth

The debate about SDG 8, Decent work and economic growth, raises a deeper controversy about if and how development should include or imply economic growth.

As several authors point out (e.g., [Reference Hove28–Reference Hickel30]), economic growth is simply incompatible with sustainability, because it implies an increased resource exploitation, which cannot be sustainable, especially in the long term. Moreover, some authors [Reference Hickel30, Reference Jacob31] challenge the idea that growth is the solution to poverty and, consequently, argue that sustainable development and the SDGs should focus more on addressing inequality and poverty directly, rather than through an economic growth that may or may not lead to solving inequality and poverty issues. In fact, the pursuit of economic growth itself is considered a social and environmental problem – notably, by the Degrowth movement [32], but also people who argue in favor of similar concepts like post-growth [33] and agrowth/growth agnosticism [34] – that should no longer be encouraged and should instead be replaced with other, more sustainable and just ways of pursuing human well-being [32–34]. Interestingly, the direct pursuit of equality can be the solution to the environmental and social problems associated with economic growth – indeed, as it has been summarized in O’Neill’s talk at TEDx Oxbridge [Reference O’Neill35]: “If growth is a substitute for equality, then equality is also a substitute for growth.”

While, at first glance, economic growth might not appear to be linked to environmental violence, there are reasons to argue that the pursuit of economic growth does, in fact, plant some of the seeds that result in environmental violence. Before discussing how, a distinction is needed: Economic growth can be intended both at the overall global level, that is, the increase of the combined economy of all the countries, and at the level of the individual countries, that is, the increase of the economy of a country, usually mentioned when discussing how a specific country is performing if compared to the others.

If we consider the growth of the global economy, it is apparent how an economy that is following a path of growth is intrinsically at odds with the possibility of a balance between human needs and planetary limits, because the central point of such a path is to depart from a balance and strongly support human needs (and wants … and even further needs and wants that would be artificially created for the sake of supporting the economy) at the expense of the planetary limits. This can easily result in damage to the environment that can increase vulnerability (h–vulnerability), cause secondary violence from the natural world (c–v. from nature), threaten the human species (d–v. from damage), cause harm and power differentials (i–differentials), and/or lead to violence among humans (a–v. between people), as has happened historically with migrations and wars originally caused by natural disasters. Also, if we consider the possible fifth form of environmental violence, we cannot help but notice how the narrative of economic growth sees technological development as a key and desirable supporter of economic growth (e.g., [Reference Hausmann and Domínguez36, Reference Rosenberg37]), while in the literature there is even the connection between economic growth, technological development, and war [Reference Ruttan38].

Some – including the OECD and the UN [Reference Vadén, Lähde, Majava, Järvensivu, Toivanen, Hakala and Eronen39] – have considered the possibility of decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth [40]; however, the evidence for decoupling is limited to some environmental impacts and geographical areas, rather than covering economic-wide resource decoupling at national or international levels [Reference Vadén, Lähde, Majava, Järvensivu, Toivanen, Hakala and Eronen39]. This (lack of) evidence exposes the decoupling of economic goods and environmental bads as a myth, as Jackson calls it in his book, Prosperity without Growth [Reference Jackson41].

If we consider, instead, the growth of the economies of individual countries pursued for the sake of competitiveness against the performance of other countries, this can again result in dangerous damage to a country’s land done for short-term performance at the expense of long-term resilience (c–v. from nature, d–v. from damage, h–vulnerability), but it can also result, more explicitly, in violence between peoples over the use of resources, for example, in the form of wars (a–v. between people) or structural violence (e–structural violence). Because of all these reasons, while economic growth is indicated as part of development, its implications appear to be, for a substantial part, at odds with it.

6.3.2 The Issue of the Roots of Development

Why is the idea of development – in general, qualitative terms – so intertwined with the idea of economic growth in specifically economic and quantitative terms? There are at least two possible related answers.

First, because one of the dimensions of sustainable development (and development in general) is the economic one (other dimensions are, according to Redclift [Reference Redclift42], the political one and the epistemological one). While this does not automatically mean supporting economic growth, it shows how accustomed we are to considering the economic side of anything, and to considering the economic side as one of the key dimensions.

Second, because, as noted by Banerjee [Reference Banerjee43], our idea of development is rooted in modernistic assumptions of rationality, which divide human beings from the biophysical environment, reduce the various aspects of development to economic growth, and see economic instruments as the appropriate way to protect the environment.

If the deepest controversies within the concept of sustainable development – the pursuit of economic growth, the prioritization of technology – can be attributed to the use of a modernistic Western idea of development, then perhaps the solution to these controversies, and possibly other issues in sustainable development, might be found by leaving the idea of development open to discussion from different cultural perspectives. Indeed, another controversy surrounding the concept of sustainable development is how development is defined, what it is rooted in, and how this idea of development represents – or does not represent – different perspectives. This issue concerns the representation – or lack of representation or limited representation – of non-Western cultures in the concept and implementation of sustainable development, that is, what Bruyninckx [Reference Bruyninckx25] called Western or Northern bias. In this chapter, a notable – albeit not exhaustive – example of this will be discussed: the Issue of Indigenous Representation (6.3.2.1).