This is part 2 of the broad discussion that André, Bob, Erin, and Simon went into, which began with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and why it seems so challenging for the world to achieve the goals. Part 2 of the discussion started with Erin’s question on whether the issue with the capitalist system is that negative environmental externalities are not sufficiently factored into economic decisions. We touched on ethical issues such as the Trolley Problem, why or why not poverty alleviation is the most important SDG, the idea of the ecological footprint and what we don’t know about SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production, and the true value of the SDGs for countries.

As always, we do not profess to have all the right answers to these questions but enter into these exchanges to learn new perspectives on the difficult and challenging questions about sustainability. We hope you do too!

Related Links

• Part 1 of this conversation
  • “The material footprint of nations” article that Simon referenced in part 1
• Moral Machine website referenced by Bob regarding the Trolley Problem
• About Sustainability… episode on Asia Pacific Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism (APRCEM)
• About Sustainability… episode on the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) and Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD), the annual reviewing mechanism for the SDGs
• IGES Publications by SDG

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.