From Sustainable Development Goals to Sustainable Living Goals: What Are We Really Sustaining?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a shared global language. They appear in policy documents, funding calls, corporate strategies, and job titles. They are widely invoked as the moral compass for a better future. And yet, a question keeps resurfacing in my academic work and practice: What if the problem is not how we pursue the SDGs, but how we name them? What if “development”, which is the word at the heart of the SDGs, is actually a contributor to maintaining and amplifying the polycrisis (climate change, inequalities, wars etc.)?

“Development” – A neutral concept?

The concept of development is often treated as self-evident and universally desirable. But decades of scholarship remind us that development is neither neutral nor universally defined. Historically, it has been framed through Western, industrial, and material benchmarks like GDP growth, infrastructure expansion, productivity, consumption.
This raises uncomfortable questions:

• Who decides what development means?
• Development for whom?
• And at whose cost?

Post-development scholars have long argued that development discourse can function as a subtle continuation of colonial power relations, exporting a single model of “progress” while delegitimizing other ways of living well. When material growth becomes the implicit goal, cultural, relational, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of life are often treated as secondary or expendable.

“Sustain-ability”: What are we sustaining?

Etymologically, sustainability denotes the capacity to sustain, leaving unresolved the question of what, precisely, is being sustained. If the underlying economic logic remains oriented toward profit maximization, growth, and extraction, then many deeply destructive activities become “sustainable” in a technical sense. Wars, for example, can be sustained for decades because they generate profits for arms manufacturers, reconstruction companies, geopolitical power brokers. From this perspective, war economies can be disturbingly sustainable. So can inequality. So can environmental degradation if it continues to generate returns for some. The paradox is that without redefining what we value, sustainability risks sustaining precisely what makes life increasingly unliveable for many.

Why “Sustainable Living Goals” might change the conversation

What if, instead of Sustainable Development Goals, we spoke about Sustainable Living Goals? This small linguistic shift carries profound implications. Living foregrounds life, not growth, not output, not competitiveness, but the conditions that allow humans and ecosystems to thrive in their own contexts, at their own pace. It centres questions such as:

• What does it take to sustain life for all in dignity?
• How do we sustain relationships, communities, ecosystems, cultures?
• What kinds of economic activity actually support living systems, and don’t destroy them?

Framed this way, sustainability stops being only an industry, a checkbox, or a job title. It becomes a way of being in the world, a daily practice, a mindset embedded in how we collectively design cities, economies, institutions, and social relations.

Rethinking the definitions that shape our systems

If we are serious about sustaining life, several definitions need to change. One of them is how we define business. In my academic work and practice, I redefine business as “an entity that solves social issues and creates social value in a financially sustainable way”.

This new definition reverses the usual hierarchy. Profit does not disappear. It just becomes an enabler for prosperity for all, not the purpose. Financial sustainability matters so that problem-solving can continue, not so that extraction can expand indefinitely.

This aligns with growing evidence that enterprises oriented toward social and ecological purpose generate more resilient outcomes over time. It also challenges the idea that markets are value-neutral. Markets always reflect what societies choose to reward.

From metrics to meaning

The SDGs have undeniably helped mobilize attention and resources. But metrics alone cannot sustain life. Research across sustainability science, psychology, and systems theory shows that lasting transformation requires shifts in values, narratives, and worldviews, not only indicators and targets. By reframing our goals around living rather than developing, we invite a more plural, context-sensitive understanding of wellbeing. What sustains life in one place may look very different in another and that diversity is not a weakness. It is a strength.

A different question for the future

Perhaps the most important question is no longer “How do we develop sustainably?” But rather: “How do we sustain human and more-than-human life in all its forms?” If we start there, sustainability stops being a sector. It becomes a shared responsibility and a shared way of living.