Abstract
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed upon in 2015, are a cornerstone of decades of efforts toward more sustainable development. The SDGs include a holistic view of development including the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development and an underlying assumption that they contribute to happiness and well-being but still there are many unknown relations and effects that need analysis and reflection. This chapter explores how the SDGs and various environmental indicators interact with the happiness and well-being measures at the country level and reflect on some of the implications. We found a significant and positive correlation level between the Subjective Wellbeing levels, SDGs index, and various Environmental Indicators at the country level. Thus, the higher the Subjective Wellbeing, the higher the SDGs index and the higher the environmental impact (in terms of ecological footprint and spillover effect). Next, we discuss the intrinsic synergies and trade-offs within the environmental, social and economic dimensions of the SDGs and the need to decouple well-being levels from consumption levels and their respective environmental impacts. Learning from previous sustainable development experiences, we propose to promote more conscious societies by means of encouraging intrinsic values and motivations as well as mindfulness.
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Iriarte, L. (2022). Are the Sustainable Development Goals the Compass for a Happier Society?. In: Cloutier, S., El-Sayed, S., Ross, A., Weaver, M. (eds) Linking Sustainability and Happiness. Community Quality-of-Life and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89559-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89559-4_7
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