Closing the sustainability gap: 30 years after “Our Common Future”, society lacks meaningful stories and relevant indicators to make the right decisions and build public support

Abstract

30 years after “Our Common Future“ by the Brundlandt Commission (1987), sustainable development summits, educators, politicians, and civil society organizations have failed to a large extent to make the sustainable development concept broadly appealing. Among missing enabling conditions are a good narrative (making an extremely complex sustainable development strategy comprehensible to all and raising public support), social norms (reflecting commonly held sustainability principles and goals) and sustainability indicators (providing clear information). Information theory as well as empirical findings show that relevant, often multidimensional, indicators or indices may be instrumental in assessing the global sustainability strategy for People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership adopted at a UN Summit in 2015. We identify the key obstacles and emphasize the instrumental role of sustainability indicators. We propose one indicator for each “P”, i.e. five indicators in total, to assess and communicate the key sustainability trends. Since many potentially useful indicators and indices already exist, we call for immediate concerted action to select such a set of five indicators without waiting for perfect ones, to complement them with universally appealing narratives, and to spread them systematically and widely.