When means of implementation meet Ecological Modernization Theory: A critical frame for thinking about the Sustainable Development Goals initiative

Abstract The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda has been hailed as the most comprehensive and integrated framework for addressing the twin challenges of global environmental change and global development. This all-encompassing framework has provided a unique intersection for inter- and trans-disciplinary critical research and scholarship aimed at interrogating and improving public policy. Nevertheless, there are crucial premises underpinning the agenda that have rarely been interrogated or subjected to explicit scrutiny. As a consequence, much of the analytical work focusing on the SDGs, their targets, indicators, and the interrelations between these, replicates these premises with problematic implications. We demonstrate that the approach manifested in the SDGs aligns strongly with Ecological Modernization Theory (EMT). It is on the basis of EMT that an integration of ‘environmental’ and ‘developmental’ objectives (goals) is proposed and advanced. We explicate this through a close analysis especially of the four explicitly environment-focussed goals (12, 13, 14, and 15), their “Means of Implementation”, and their overall integration with Goal 17. We apprehend the problems of EMT through this analysis. As we show, there are alternatives to the EMT approach to the environment-and-development constellation. Presenting it as inevitable, and accepting its premises thus turns out to be ultimately an ideological choice. Our analysis of the environment-and-development link under the SDGs makes such choices intelligible, and their implications clearer, irrespective of ideological preferences. Taking these critical insights into account more centrally is imperative for better understanding and responding to the evolving intersections between science, technology, ecology, and social, economic and political change.