Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

I like the doughnut image ... just as I like a whole lot of the other depictions of society, the economy and the environment. The problem is that they are good to look at, but, in my view not very helpful in addressing the very important question of progress and performance.

The purpose of data, as far as I am concerned is to understand what is the state of affairs, in all its complexity ... and how this state of affairs has changed in the past, and how best to make the best progress in the future, and to do it in a manner that is the most effective (performance).

I was in corporate management for about 20 years before I started to do consulting work for the UN, the World Bank and others in the official development assistance (ODA)environment (some 30 years ago). I was appalled at the lack of management information in this space back then and find that the data are still lacking in information that is useful for making better high performance decisions. More data ... more goals ... more talk ... is not going to change very much unless there is also some really basic rethink of how data should be used to change behavior by ALL the actors in society and the economy.

From my vantage point, nothing much is going to change unless we start to measure everything that really matters ... everything. I am not at all surprised that the UN has forgotten to include the environment in its draft goals for a better world. But then, many of the pro-environmental groups forget that things like energy are absolutely essential to the modern quality of life and standard of living. Most corporations make their profits marketing products that most of their customers really don't need ... and so on.

We can have a wonderful world ... but putting all our money resources into making more and more profit will ensure that in due course we have a failed society and environmental disaster. What a pity.

Peter Burgess
TrueValueMetrics ... Multi Dimension Impact Accounting

Will these Sustainable Development Goals get us into the doughnut (aka a safe and just space for humanity)? Guest post from Kate Raworth

Kate Raworth left Oxfam’s research team last year to devote herself to some really pioneering thinking on how to combine environmental and social Kate Raworthconcerns in a new approach she calls ‘doughnut economics‘ (book due in 2016 – it could be a biggie). Here she casts her doughnutty gaze over the UN’s recently drafted Sustainable Development Goals

In mid July, the UN’s Open Working Group proposed a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 17 goals and 169 indicators, to be whittled down through negotiations by the UN General Assembly next month, and adopted as official goals in 2015. So now is the perfect time to play spot the difference: the SDGs vs. the doughnut. (Open PDF ... SDGs-FINAL-Proposal-of-OWG-140719.pdf)

This comparison makes sense. The doughnut’s social foundation was crowd-sourced from governments’ social priorities in the run-up to the 2012 Rio + 20 conference. And the doughnut’s environmental ceiling contains the nine planetary boundaries that protect the key Earth-system processes on which humanity’s wellbeing depends, as proposed by Johan Rockström and his fellow Earth-system scientists in 2009. So how do these draft SDGs deliver against the doughnut’s social and planetary boundaries?

The comparison reveals three key points: on priorities, on ambition and on economic growth.

First, on priorities. Taking a big picture perspective, this initial cut of the SDGs has a very doughnutty spirit. Figure 1 maps the proposed SDGs onto the 11 social and 9 environmental dimensions of the doughnut: green rings indicate issues named in the top-tier goals; orange rings indicate those mentioned in the 2nd tier targets (and the numbers identify which goal).

Fig 1. Spot the difference: mapping the proposed SDGs onto the doughnut

SDGs v donut It’s clear that every one of the doughnut’s dimensions gets a mention in either the goals or their targets. But the social foundation is more fully and explicitly addressed than the environmental ceiling.

Goals 1 to 10 map out the Social Foundation almost word for word (with the sole exception of voice, which only gets a look-in under some scattered targets). Ending poverty and human deprivation is clearly a priority, as well it should be. The SDGs add a new goal to the social foundation, on human settlements. Housing and transport were missing from governments’ top priorities at Rio+20 (and hence from the doughnut) but have now got the attention they deserve. There’s an evident contrast between the near-total coverage of the social foundation in the goals, versus the more patchy coverage of the environmental ceiling. Some environmental priorities are named directly in goals, but most just in the targets, and even then not always explicitly.

Second, on ambition. The doughnut’s boundaries are based on measurable targets for both the social and environmental dimensions. So how do the SDGs compare? Their ambition to end human deprivation by 2030 (ie to get everyone above the social foundation) is focused and clearly defined. But their ambition to address environmental degradation (ie to stay below the environmental ceiling) is more varied and vague.

earth from spaceThe vast majority of social targets have strong ambition, seeking by 2030, to end all forms of poverty, and ensure access “for all” to food, water, sanitation, energy, health care, education, work, housing and more (see Table 1 here Raworth Annex Tables SDG Doughnut). What will success look like? It’s pretty clear: essentially 100% of people will enjoy these rights. Powerful and important stuff.

The environmental targets, by contrast, fall into four clusters, aiming to ‘halt’, ‘restore’, ‘sustain’ and ‘reduce’, and most targets focus on 2020 (see Table 2 here Raworth Annex Tables SDG Doughnut). Some are absolute and time-bound: end overfishing and halt deforestation by 2020. But two key ambitions – to halt biodiversity loss and combat climate change – lack target dates. And for others, the measure of success is unclear. What would it mean to ‘significantly reduce’ nutrient pollution by 2025? To ‘minimize the release of’ hazardous chemicals by 2030? Or to ‘minimize the impacts of’ ocean acidification (by no set date)? The concern among scientists is that the final ambition on targets will now be driven by “political pragmatism, not scientific reality”.

Third, on economic growth. There is a very clear commitment in the proposal to ‘sustained economic growth’. It gets three mentions in the opening paragraphs, and then Goal 8 focuses on promoting ‘sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth’. Is this compatible with getting into the doughnut – and with achieving the rest of the SDGs? Only if economic growth (ie an ever-rising GDP) can be recoupled with poverty reduction and decoupled from environmental degradation. And this is where things get more tricky.

For starters, GDP growth will probably look like an out-of-date economic metric by 2030: smart countries will be steering by a wider dashboard of social and economic success by then, accounting for natural and social wealth stocks as well as monetized flows. So let’s not get hooked on pursuing this goal, and certainly not at the cost of any others.

Making GDP growth ‘inclusive’ by recoupling it with poverty reduction is critical for getting into the doughnut. And Goal 10 – to reduce inequality within and between countries – is a crucial part of getting there. Target 10.1 commits that, by 2030, the incomes of the bottom 40% in each country will grow faster than the national average. Progressive stuff: this target must not get lost in the wash.

What about making GDP growth ‘sustainable’? Here, things get fuzzy. Target 8.4 calls on countries to ‘endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation…with developed countries taking the lead’. Just endeavour?! Let’s be clear. Decoupling can’t be treated as a try-it-if-you-like bonus target. If the aim is to combine ‘sustained economic growth’ with combating climate change, halting deforestation and biodiversity loss, and significantly reducing air, soil and water pollution, then decoupling GDP from resource use is, by definition, absolutely essential – a logical necessity.

And (since the SDGs don’t do it) let’s ask: how much decoupling is needed, in different kinds of countries? It’s the tough question that has stalled the climate negotiations for years. And Figure 2 helps to unpack the key concepts.

Figure 2. GDP growth and resource decoupling: what will it take?

GDP and resource decouplingBy 2030, low-income countries need to achieve relative decoupling, backed by international support for energy- and resource-efficient investments – so that their GDP grows faster than their resource use. Upper-middle income countries will need to be on track for absolute decoupling, so that their total resource use starts falling while their GDP grows. And high-income countries that still want a rising GDP will need to achieve sufficient absolute decoupling – strongly reducing their resource use as their GDP grows. Without such decoupling, ‘sustained economic growth’ will push us all right over the environmental ceiling, out of the doughnut, and into an ecological era that is far more hostile to humanity. And if the scale of sufficient absolute decoupling doesn’t look feasible – especially in the high-income countries – then it may be time for them to look long and hard for alternative economic paradigms that do not depend on unlimited GDP growth.

So, will these SDGs get us into the doughnut? They will certainly get us over the social foundation – and that’s well worth celebrating. But they do not face up to what it will take to stay within the environmental ceiling – especially with unlimited GDP growth as the driving economic paradigm.

These Sustainable Development Goals matter. They are humanity’s best chance to envision a shared and lasting prosperity for all. So let’s see what happens in September as the UN General Assembly gets down to negotiating this proposal. And if anyone out there will be at the meeting, please – could you give them doughnuts in the coffee break?…

Kate Raworth is an economic re-thinker and the creator of Oxfam’s doughnut of social and planetary boundaries. Her passion is the rewriting of economics to make it fit for the 21st century. She blogs at www.kateraworth.com and tweets @KateRaworth.

6 Comments

Peter Thompson August 11, 2014 at 12:01 pm Reply I would say your analysis is excellent, but all this is pie-in-the-sky as long as governments like those of the US and UK continue to pursue policies which are steadily widening wealth inequality, and promoting techniques like fracking to prolong our irreplaceable-resource consumption. Is there any chance of national governments taking these UN SDGs seriously?

Clem McCartney August 11, 2014 at 1:11 pm Reply Thanks for your analysis,which seems very fair. The only place where I would be more optimistic is on the question of voice. It may only be mentioned “under scattered targets”, as you mark on your diagram, but some of the language is very clear and unambiguous. For example: 16.7 ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels 16.8 broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance This covers not only within countries but between states. The target for women’s participation is also very clear and unambiguous (5.5) though it is missing from your diagram. I agree voice is an important foundation for the whole effective implementation of the goals so let us make sure that these targets are retained if not upgraded. Clem Clem McCartney Policy and Content Co-ordinator Shared Societies Project, Club de Madrid

Kate Raworth August 11, 2014 at 2:02 pm Reply Peter, I agree there is always the pie-in-the-sky risk with global goal setting. But before we dismiss it all, I’d say: - Let’s not ignore how hard governments lobby to cut out goals and targets they don’t like, to eradicate numbers and commitments they want to avoid. So they clearly care about them, even if defensively - A growing number of international institutions, esp. UN agencies, are aligning their work around pursuing these kinds of goals, and monitoring their own achievements against them too. So they do influence finance and focus of the international development community. - Most important, I’d say that national goals (which will be derived from the global ones) are valuable for citizens who want to hold their own governments to account – by pointing out the inconsistencies of their policies, and most positively creating a vision of an alternative goal to unlimited consumption and growth. So yes we risk ending up with pie the sky. But without even putting that pie in the sky, and trying to bring it down to Earth, we stand very little chance of getting doughnuts on the table.

Peter Chowla August 11, 2014 at 3:58 pm Reply Very nice presentation, and the Figure 1 is great. In fact completely surprised that the OWG produced a set of goals and targets which hits every single one of your indicators! That should be celebrated. I have to inject of bit of the politics back in (I avoid saying “political economy” out of fear over the language that Duncan has been blogging about before). There is a strong political reason that the targets on the environment side are weaker in the OWG proposal, and you mentioned it: “It’s the tough question that has stalled the climate negotiations for years.” If the climate negotiations have been stalled for years, you didn’t really expect the OWG – a 1 year process – to come up with the targets did you? That would be hope beyond all rationality. Besides which, the OWG was a less accountable and legitimate body than a UNFCCC COP in which to make intergovernmental commitments on climate and related issues. This is explicitly referenced in proposed goal 13. Developing countries have a strong fear of having climate targets set elsewhere. They know what happens when you do that: think back to trade, when targets on trade liberalisation are not negotiated in a single place – they had those targets imposed on them by the World Bank/IMF and it subsequently hampered their negotiating space in the run up to the conclusion of the Uruguay round. As much as we might like to have a single negotiation for a single global framework, that is neither practical nor, probably, desirable. Climate and environment deals and targets are going to have to be negotiated in the legitimate fora that are set up to negotiate them. Nor if only, we had such legitimate fora for the finance and development issues…

David Murray August 11, 2014 at 5:10 pm Reply Instead of ‘making GDP growth ‘sustainable’’ work from degrowth for the highly industrialised to some growth for poor countries but towards Herman Daly’s ‘steady-state economics’. Enough is Enough by Rob Dietz & Dan O’Neill is good on this.

Duncan Green August 11, 2014 at 5:39 pm Reply Not sure degrowth is actually feasible, let alone politically possible. See http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/degrowth-is-it-useful-or-feasible/ for why. Dare say Kate may want to add something on this!

Peter Burgess August 11, 2014 at 6:21 pm Reply I like the doughnut image … just as I like a whole lot of the other depictions of society, the economy and the environment. The problem is that they are good to look at, but, in my view not very helpful in addressing the very important question of progress and performance. The purpose of data, as far as I am concerned is to understand what is the state of affairs, in all its complexity … and how this state of affairs has changed in the past, and how best to make the best progress in the future, and to do it in a manner that is the most effective (performance). I was in corporate management for about 20 years before I started to do consulting work for the UN, the World Bank and others in the official development assistance (ODA)environment (some 30 years ago). I was appalled at the lack of management information in this space back then and find that the data are still lacking in information that is useful for making better high performance decisions. More data … more goals … more talk … is not going to change very much unless there is also some really basic rethink of how data should be used to change behavior by ALL the actors in society and the economy. From my vantage point, nothing much is going to change unless we start to measure everything that really matters … everything. I am not at all surprised that the UN has forgotten to include the environment in its draft goals for a better world. But then, many of the pro-environmental groups forget that things like energy are absolutely essential to the modern quality of life and standard of living. Most corporations make their profits marketing products that most of their customers really don’t need … and so on. We can have a wonderful world … but putting all our money resources into making more and more profit will ensure that in due course we have a failed society and environmental disaster. What a pity. Peter Burgess TrueValueMetrics … Multi Dimension Impact Accounting Leave a Reply