Trade-offs of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta
Last updated on Sep 10, 2020 4 min read Sustainability

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represented a positive progress of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They offer a complex approach by integrating the three dimensions of sustainability with aspects of management and governance 1. However, the incorporation of environmental boundaries has generated contradictions among goals 2. We need to be aware that reaching all SDGs without negative impacts will be impossible, simply because implementing the 17 SDGs will imply more consumptions of commodities, which will jeopardize natural resources 3.

SDGs can no longer be analysed as a list of isolated targets or ‘silo approach’ 4. The study of the spill-over effects among goals and targets are increasingly noticeable 4 5 6 7 8 9 and facilitates understanding of interactions between human-environmental systems 10. These interrelations have been analysed since MDGs using system dynamics (SD) and causal diagrams 11 12 and it has been directed towards nexus analysis among water, energy, food, and land use, through methods such as system models, ecological footprints, and material and resource flow analysis 10. A nexus approach detect and minimize harmful trade-offs and identify synergies across the system, enhancing integrated planning, decision-making, governance, and management 13.

Despite the transdisciplinary effort, much remains to be done. The addition of interactions (across temporal and geographical scales) increases the complexity of the analysis and monitoring of the SDG. Moreover, social and technological circumstances in each region, as culture, stakeholders, and lack of data, difficult the standardization of techniques to keep a systematic control. We are facing a complex problem, not only due to the connectivity of the 169 targets, but also for being in a system with evident conflicts of interest, and with many actors, and with extensive casuistry linked to regional settings.

The methods and tools that we develop must, on one hand, be flexible to adapt to the changing social-environmental conditions, and capable to include approaches that are developing in the studies of nexus of SDG (i.e., SD, Complex Networks, Societal Metabolism). On the other hand, it may be able to maintain a replicable and logical structure, reliable for the measurement of qualitative and quantitative indicators, which allows monitoring the performance of activities and initiatives, following the premise that “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it”.

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SDGs
Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta
Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta
PhD in Sustainability Science

Researcher exploring Sustainability to raise resilience in communities

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