Affirmative and critical perspectives on the 2030 Agenda of sustainable development and the sustainable development goals

This chapter shifts the perspective from system-internal to system-external critical assessments, and especially the types of assessments that are directed at the relations between goals, responses, and the fundamental drivers underlying global socioecological challenges. It is an important aspect of the creation of the 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that various popular movements, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and trade unions had the opportunity to be significantly more active and influential than was the case in relation to the millennium development goals (MDGs). This means that many different perspectives – other than the perspectives of nations – have been merged during negotiations, including environmental and climate, human rights, Global South, and labor market/workers’ perspectives. First, this chapter highlights some affirmative assessments of the negotiation process and the outcomes of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the SDGs. Second, it thematizes substantial points of critique – from grassroots movements and scholars critically assessing goals and drivers of ecological, social, and economic development. Finally, the chapter discusses which driving forces, pressures, states, impacts, and responses the 2030 Agenda and the SDG targets are addressing and which they are not, and, furthermore, elaborates on the multiple structures, power relations, and drivers that would have to be considered in order to fully realize the intentions of the Agenda and the SDGs.