A Future in Sustainable Development : Backcasting the SDGs

Sammanfattning: In 2015 the 17 Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by 193 member states of the United Nations. The SDGs are highly ambitious and their underlying processes are interconnected by causal relationships. Work towards fulfilling them therefore requires considering how solutions for one goal will impacts others. In this study target-oriented backcasting is applied to examine set goals in the future, as well as to determine the current state and trends of development. This is done in an effort to determine conflicts between targets and resource limitations of future development. The findings suggest that the current paradigm of giving GDP growth highest societal priority, leads to a causal relationship where development occurs at the expense of sustainability at the global level. In order to overcome this, the fulfilment of the SDGs has to be given higher priority than the size and growth rate of the GDP.