The contradiction of growth: The SDGs offer superficial responses such as reduce food waste, make resource use more efficient and ‘encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices’.
Growth does not reduce poverty: We need to abandon GDP in favour of a saner measure of human progress – that does not rely on endlessly increasing extraction and consumption.
Inequality gets ignored: This is yet another monumental global challenge that has been handed down to the next generation.
Big drivers of poverty are left unaddressed: The SDGs are eerily silent on greater regulation of financial markets and big banks.
The mis-measurement of poverty: The SDGs stick with the discredited $1.25-per-day measure. If we measure poverty by the more accurate $5-per-day line, the total poverty headcount rises to 4.3 billion people, more than 60% of humanity.
The SDGs fail us. As Arundhati Roy put it, ‘we are not fighting to tinker with reforming a system that needs to be replaced’.From ‘Five Reasons to Think Twice About the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals’, The London School of Economics and Political Science