Strongly sustainable development goals: Overcoming distances constraining responsible action

Sustainable development has been an important policy goal for the international community for over three decades. Still, the state of the planet continues to worsen. This conceptual article considers the failure largely a result of structural obstacles and the so-called weak sustainability discourse, popularized by the Brundtland report and manifested today in The 2030 Agenda. The article adopts a strong sustainability perspective for examining structural distances between actors and the consequences of their acts. We argue that these impede responsible action and that policy should aim to reduce or eliminate distances in the four dimensions of space, time, functions and relations. The article concludes by suggesting Strongly Sustainable Development Goals, which could help transitioning humanity towards sustainability, lower the anthropogenic environmental impact on the planet, and enable the continuity of diverse life on Earth.