Strongly sustainable development goals : Overcoming distances constraining responsible action

Open Access

Abstract

Sustainable development has been an important policy goal for the international community for over threedecades. Still, the state of the planet continues to worsen. This conceptual article considers the failure largely aresult of structural obstacles and the so-called weak sustainability discourse, popularized by the Brundtlandreport and manifested today in The 2030 Agenda. The article adopts a strong sustainability perspective forexamining structural distances between actors and the consequences of their acts. We argue that these impederesponsible action and that policy should aim to reduce or eliminate distances in the four dimensions of space,time, functions and relations. The article concludes by suggesting Strongly Sustainable Development Goals,which could help transitioning humanity towards sustainability, lower the anthropogenic environmental impacton the planet, and enable the continuity of diverse life on Earth.