From Limits to Growth to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Developed in 2000, the MDGs set targets by 2015 concerning human development with a focus on developing countries. One of its eight targets was to “ensure environmental sustainability”. However, the SDGs put even more emphasis on sustainability and climate issues and took a universal scope with altogether 17 goals, developed in a participatory process. Adopted by 193 – almost all – UN member states in 2015 as part of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the SDGs show a broad consensus and hence are of great significance.

 Fig. : Sustainable Development Goals

Source: © United Nations (2019). The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.

The mining industry is particularly relevant to the SDGs. Here are some examples: SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) is important as working conditions in a global set-up often do not follow the same standards of fairness in all areas of activity and as work safety issues are of particular concern for the sector. Further the industry “generates significant economic multipliers through local procurement and contributions to GDP, particularly in resource-dependent economies” like many developing countries in the global South. SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) is key to mining as the goal points among others to the need for an enhanced waste management, including recycling and reuse, to minimize environmental harm. “Mining provides essential materials for modern life but also generates substantial waste. Increasing recycling rates and advancing a circular economy for metals requires collaboration across the entire value chain”. SDG 13 (Climate Action) is a balancing act for the sector as on the one hand it contributes to creating a bigger carbon foot print as long as fossils like lignite continue to be extracted but as on the other hand the industry plays a key role in reducing greenhouse emissions by providing the raw materials it takes to foster renewables. Additionally, SDG 15 (Life on Land) is a factor mining can have a significant impact on. While e.g. from open cast mining activities land degradation is a negative effect, rehabilitation of former mining sites can mean a major contribution to biodiversity . This is why it is important that every mining endeavour has a rehabilitation plan before mining activities commence.

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 Med. : Do you know all 17 SDGs?

YouTube – United Nations


Time to watch 1m24s

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Further reading:
UNDP (2016).
Mapping Mining to the Sustainable. An Atlas.
World Economic Forum Cologny/Geneva.

Exercise

 Task : From Limits to Growth to the MDGs and to the SDGs

Watch the video or look at the UNDP paper, then take two other SDGs than those presented above as examples and explain why and how they are relevant for mining.

Time to complete approx. 30 min.

To be sure both, MDGs and SDGs, focused on more concrete policy objectives compared to the former theoretical sustainability discussions: While the Club of Rome took an analytical, systems-based approach, and while the Earth Summit with its Agenda 21 provided political commitments and practical frameworks for voluntary action, the MDGs and later the Agenda 2030 with the SDGs came up with concrete quantifiable goal-oriented measures. Still, in essence they all echoed the recognition that achieving sustainability requires systemic transformation. As emphasized in Earth4All: "True progress requires an understanding of and adaptation to the complex interplay of economic, ecological, and social systems"

But how do the theoretical sustainability frameworks and the global framework of SDGs translate for companies? Let’s take a closer look at this in the next section.