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Sustainable Development in the Anthropocene

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The Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on the evolving role of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the context of the Anthropocene and its historical roots. The story of the SDGs agenda is a story about development. At the heart of ‘sustainable development’ is the legacy of unsustainable development with its roots in modernity and colonialism. Critical engagement with the SDGs involves recognising these roots are shared by universities and the reciprocal need for maintenance, repair and regeneration. The potential for the SDG agenda to function in practice as a turning point is far from certain. Shaping its actual outcomes are legacies from the past, competing worldviews and different readings of the sustainable development challenge. The SDGs represent the goal posts we jointly need to orient towards and ways of working differently in the Anthropocene. These goal posts are wide and diverse but represent a significant shift for both universities and society.

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Notes

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  32. 32.

    Koponen, p. 16.

  33. 33.

    Op cit.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 3.

  35. 35.

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    Ibid.

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    Overton, J and Murray, W (2020) Aid and Development, London, Routledge.

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  50. 50.

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  51. 51.

    https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/be6d1d56/files/uploaded/151112-SDG-Financing-Needs-Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

  52. 52.

    Scheyvens, R., Banks, G., Hughes, E. (2016) The Private Sector and the SDGs: The Need to Move Beyond ‘Business as Usual’. Sustainable Development 24, p. 371–382.

  53. 53.

    Sachs, W., ed. (1992) The Development Dictionary. A Guide to Knowledge as Power, London: Zed Books.

  54. 54.

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  55. 55.

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  56. 56.

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  57. 57.

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  58. 58.

    Ibid., p. 2547.

  59. 59.

    Weber, H. (2017). “Politics of ‘Leaving No One Behind’: Contesting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda.” Globalizations 14(3), p. 399–414.

  60. 60.

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  61. 61.

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    Dryzek (2012), p. 160.

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    Dryzek (2012). See also Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J., Behrens, W.W. (1972) The Limits to Growth; a Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe, New York.

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  70. 70.

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  71. 71.

    Ibid.

  72. 72.

    Meadows, D. (1999). Leverage Points: places to intervene in a system. http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf The Sustainability Institute. On the increasing flammability of the planet due to climate change, see Pyne (2020) above.

  73. 73.

    Turner, G. (2014) Is global collapse imminent? An updated comparison of the Limits to Growth with historical data. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute Research paper no. 4, University of Melbourne. Pp. 21. https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/publications/research-papers/is-global-collapse-imminent. Accessed February 5, 2021.

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    Wendy Steele & Lauren Rickards

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Steele, W., Rickards, L. (2021). Sustainable Development in the Anthropocene. In: The Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73575-3_2

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