Global Transformations: Trends towards Increasing Instability and Sustainable Development Drivers in Current Situation

Abstract

The ongoing global transformations and the high turbulence of global processes call into question sustainability of development of most countries, make it necessary to identify factors leading to instability and search for drivers of sustainable development in current situation. The conducted research allowed us to determine that the trends towards increasing instability are mainly determined by the processes of deglobalization, the dominance of maximizing production and consumption ideas, increasing social inequality, uneven distribution of resources between the environmental, social, and economic components of sustainable development, human violation of the laws of biosphere development, insufficient environmental protection measures, the consequences of recent crises, international conflicts, disadvantages of management. The considered factors of instability growth, the strengthening of their influence and the associated risks led to setting a new task: to determine what can be a driver of stability in modern difficult situation. Our study shows that positive impulses for sustainable development include: the dissemination of ideas and steps towards the implementation of the green economy; the establishment of specific deadlines for achieving targets of sustainable development by many countries; the development of technological sovereignty of countries based on a green worldview; the implementation of the concept of sustainable development not only by governments, but also at the micro level — by companies; the emergence of new financial instruments, in particular, green and social bonds to attract capital and invest in projects with environmental and social benefits; advances in the taxonomy of green finance. An important result of the study is the conclusion that despite the possibility of deceleration in certain periods, sustainable development is a long-term trend in the functioning of our civilization and further research should be aimed at improving management decisions to support it in the short and long term.