TY - JOUR

T1 - When the whole is less than the sum of all parts-Tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives

AU - Downing, Andrea S.

AU - Wong, Grace Y.

AU - Dyer, Michelle

AU - Aguiar, Ana Paula

AU - Selomane, Odirilwe

AU - Aceituno, Amanda Jimenez

N1 - Funding Information: The work of ASD, GYW, MD, OS, APA and AJA were supported by the GRAID programme at Stockholm Resilience Centre. The input of Andrea Downing was also made possible by funding from the Erling-Persson Family Foundation through Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. We thank Patrick Flege for his research contributions in the early stages of the project. Publisher Copyright: © 2021

PY - 2021/7/1

Y1 - 2021/7/1

N2 - The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and assumes that global-level progress is the sum of national, sector-specific gains. In this study, we investigate effects of reforestation programs in China on countries supplying forest and agricultural commodities to China. Using case studies of rubber and palm oil production in Southeast Asian countries, soy production in Brazil and logging in South Pacific Island states, we investigate cross-sector effects of production for and trade to China in these exporting countries. We use a three-step multi-method approach. 1) We identify distal trade flows and the narratives used to justify them, using a telecoupling framework; 2) we design causal loop diagrams to analyse social-ecological processes of change in our case studies driven by trade to China and 3) we link these processes of change to the SDG framework. We find that sustainability progress in China from reforestation is cancelled out by the deforestation and cross-sectoral impacts supporting this reforestation abroad. Narratives of economic development support commodity production abroad through unrealised aims of benefit distribution and assumptions of substitutability of socio-ecological forest systems. Across cases, we find the analysed trade supports unambiguous progress on few SDGs only, and we find many mixed effects – where processes that support the achievement of SDGs exist, but are overshadowed by counterproductive processes. Our study represents a useful approach for tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives and provides cross-scale and cross-sectoral lenses through which to identify drivers of unsustainability that can be addressed in the design of effective sustainability policies.

AB - The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and assumes that global-level progress is the sum of national, sector-specific gains. In this study, we investigate effects of reforestation programs in China on countries supplying forest and agricultural commodities to China. Using case studies of rubber and palm oil production in Southeast Asian countries, soy production in Brazil and logging in South Pacific Island states, we investigate cross-sector effects of production for and trade to China in these exporting countries. We use a three-step multi-method approach. 1) We identify distal trade flows and the narratives used to justify them, using a telecoupling framework; 2) we design causal loop diagrams to analyse social-ecological processes of change in our case studies driven by trade to China and 3) we link these processes of change to the SDG framework. We find that sustainability progress in China from reforestation is cancelled out by the deforestation and cross-sectoral impacts supporting this reforestation abroad. Narratives of economic development support commodity production abroad through unrealised aims of benefit distribution and assumptions of substitutability of socio-ecological forest systems. Across cases, we find the analysed trade supports unambiguous progress on few SDGs only, and we find many mixed effects – where processes that support the achievement of SDGs exist, but are overshadowed by counterproductive processes. Our study represents a useful approach for tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives and provides cross-scale and cross-sectoral lenses through which to identify drivers of unsustainability that can be addressed in the design of effective sustainability policies.

KW - Sustainable Development Goals

KW - China

KW - Telecoupling framework

KW - Reforestation

KW - Trade routes

KW - Cross-system social-ecological burdens

KW - Sustainability education

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108256885&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102306

DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102306

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 69

JO - Global Environmental Change : Human and Policy Dimensions

JF - Global Environmental Change : Human and Policy Dimensions

SN - 0959-3780

M1 - 102306

ER -