IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i13p8185-d855849.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Replacing Sustainable Development: Potential Frameworks for International Cooperation in an Era of Increasing Crises and Disasters

Author

Listed:
  • Jem Bendell

    (Initiative for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS), University of Cumbria, Charlotte Mason Building, Rydal Road, Ambleside LA22 9BB, UK)

Abstract

This transdisciplinary review of research about international cooperation on social and environmental change builds the case for replacing Sustainable Development as the dominant framework for an era of increasing crises and disasters. The review is the output of an intentional exploration of recent studies in multiple subject areas, based on the authors’ decades of work in related fields since the Rio Earth Summit 30 years ago. It documents the failure to progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Consequently, scholarship critiquing the conceptual framework behind those ‘Global Goals’, and the economic ideology they arose from, is used to explain that failure. Although the pandemic set back the SDGs, it further revealed the inappropriate strategy behind those goals. This suggests the Global Goals constitute an ‘own-goal’ scored against people and nature. Alternative frameworks for organising action on social and environmental issues are briefly reviewed. It is argued that a future framework must relate to a new eco-social contract between citizen and state and engage existing capabilities that are relevant to an increasingly disrupted world. The case is made for an upgraded form of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) as an overarching framework. The proposed upgrades include detaching from economic ideologies and recognising that a wider metadisaster from climate chaos may reduce the future availability of external support. Therefore, self-reliant resilience and locally led adaptation are important to the future of DRM. Options for professionals continuing to use the term sustainability, such as this journal, are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jem Bendell, 2022. "Replacing Sustainable Development: Potential Frameworks for International Cooperation in an Era of Increasing Crises and Disasters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:13:p:8185-:d:855849
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/8185/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/8185/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keith Pezzoli, 1997. "Sustainable Development: A Transdisciplinary Overview of the Literature," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 549-574.
    2. Jem Bendell & Katie Carr, 2021. "Group Facilitation on Societal Disruption and Collapse: Insights from Deep Adaptation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Roth, Steffen, 2021. "The Great Reset. Restratification for lives, livelihoods, and the planet," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    4. Robin Naidoo & Brendan Fisher, 2020. "Reset Sustainable Development Goals for a pandemic world," Nature, Nature, vol. 583(7815), pages 198-201, July.
    5. Charles Gore & Henrietta L. Moore, 2015. "Global Prosperity and Sustainable Development Goals," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 801-815, August.
    6. Aram Ziai, 2017. "Post-development 25 years after," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(12), pages 2547-2558, December.
    7. Jason Hickel & Giorgos Kallis, 2020. "Is Green Growth Possible?," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 469-486, June.
    8. Jason Hickel, 2016. "The true extent of global poverty and hunger: questioning the good news narrative of the Millennium Development Goals," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 749-767, May.
    9. Jason Hickel, 2019. "The contradiction of the sustainable development goals: Growth versus ecology on a finite planet," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(5), pages 873-884, September.
    10. Thomas Dyllick & Kai Hockerts, 2002. "Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 130-141, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kira J. Cooper & Robert B. Gibson, 2022. "A Novel Framework for Inner-Outer Sustainability Assessment," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-27, December.
    2. Annika Tampe & Kristina Höse & Uwe Götze, 2023. "Sustainability-Oriented Assessment of Fuel Cells—A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-33, September.
    3. Chia-Hsiang Chen & Kuo-Wei Yen, 2023. "Developing International Collaboration Indicators in Fisheries Remote Sensing Research to Achieve SDG 14 and 17," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-22, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patrick Moriarty & Damon Honnery, 2020. "New Approaches for Ecological and Social Sustainability in a Post-Pandemic World," World, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-14, October.
    2. Robra, Ben & Pazaitis, Alex & Giotitsas, Chris & Pansera, Mario, 2023. "From creative destruction to convivial innovation - A post-growth perspective," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Evita Milana & Frank Ulrich, 2022. "Do open innovation practices in firms promote sustainability?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1718-1732, December.
    4. Mariia Kostetckaia & Markus Hametner, 2022. "How Sustainable Development Goals interlinkages influence European Union countries’ progress towards the 2030 Agenda," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 916-926, October.
    5. Tom Henfrey & Giuseppe Feola & Gil Penha‐Lopes & Filka Sekulova & Ana Margarida Esteves, 2023. "Rethinking the sustainable development goals: Learning with and from community‐led initiatives," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 211-222, February.
    6. Yiwen Zeng & Rebecca K. Runting & James E. M. Watson & Luis Roman Carrasco, 2022. "Telecoupled environmental impacts are an obstacle to meeting the sustainable development goals," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 76-82, February.
    7. Nicholas A. Ashford & Ralph P. Hall & Johan Arango-Quiroga & Kyriakos A. Metaxas & Amy L. Showalter, 2020. "Addressing Inequality: The First Step Beyond COVID-19 and Towards Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-43, July.
    8. Tadashi Hirai, 2022. "A balancing act between economic growth and sustainable development: Historical trajectory through the lens of development indicators," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1900-1910, December.
    9. Ahlerup, Pelle & Olsson, Ola, 2023. "Sustainable Economic Growth: A Critical Assessment of SDG 8.1," Working Papers in Economics 834, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Patricia Urban & Markus Hametner, 2022. "The Economy–Environment Nexus: Sustainable Development Goals Interlinkages in Austria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-25, September.
    11. Moyer, Jonathan D., 2023. "Blessed are the peacemakers: The future burden of intrastate conflict on poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    12. Gatti, Donatella, 2022. "Going green and (un)equal ? Political coalitions, redistribution, and the environment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    13. Ioana Gutu & Daniela Tatiana Agheorghiesei & Alexandru Tugui, 2023. "Assessment of a Workforce Sustainability Tool through Leadership and Digitalization," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-30, January.
    14. Megan Devonald & Nicola Jones & Sally Youssef, 2022. "‘We Have No Hope for Anything’: Exploring Interconnected Economic, Social and Environmental Risks to Adolescents in Lebanon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-17, February.
    15. Jung Eon Kwon & Hyung Rok Woo, 2017. "The Impact of Flipped Learning on Cooperative and Competitive Mindsets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-15, December.
    16. Rambaud, Alexandre & Richard, Jacques, 2015. "The “Triple Depreciation Line” instead of the “Triple Bottom Line”: Towards a genuine integrated reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 92-116.
    17. Maria Björklund & Helena Forslund, 2019. "Challenges Addressed by Swedish Third-Party Logistics Providers Conducting Sustainable Logistics Business Cases," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-15, May.
    18. Merriam Haffar & Cory Searcy, 2018. "Target‐setting for ecological resilience: Are companies setting environmental sustainability targets in line with planetary thresholds?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1079-1092, November.
    19. Pishchulov, Grigory & Trautrims, Alexander & Chesney, Thomas & Gold, Stefan & Schwab, Leila, 2019. "The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process revisited: A revised method with application to sustainable supplier selection," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 166-179.
    20. Yeray Hernandez & Gustavo Naumann & Serafin Corral & Paulo Barbosa, 2020. "Water Footprint Expands with Gross Domestic Product," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-6, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:13:p:8185-:d:855849. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.