Brief Communication
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0555-0
Environmental destruction not avoided with the
Sustainable Development Goals
Yiwen Zeng   1 ✉, Sean Maxwell2, Rebecca K. Runting3, Oscar Venter4, James E. M. Watson   2,5 and
L. Roman Carrasco   1 ✉
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were designed
to reconcile environmental protection with socioeconomic
development. Here, we compare SDG indicators to a suite
of external measures, showing that while most countries
are progressing well towards environmental SDGs, this has
little relationship with actual biodiversity conservation, and
instead better represents socioeconomic development. If this
continues, the SDGs will likely serve as a smokescreen for fur-
ther environmental destruction throughout the decade.
Despite much progress towards addressing social and economic
issues, the world continues to face an unprecedented environmental
and biodiversity crisis, with more than 6,000 species threatened by
over-exploitation and over 230 million hectares of forest lost since
20001–3. Integrating the protection of nature into the wider scope of
human development, the SDGs were established as a blueprint for a
more sustainable future for all4,5.
The SDGs, a framework of 17 goals, 169 targets and 247 indica-
tors, were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015 to replace
the now-expired Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)4,5. At
their inception, the SDGs were touted as a major improvement
over the MDGs, in part because of the integration of the envi-
ronment across the entire framework4,6. This integration revital-
ized the global focus on sustainability, and served as the basis of
environmentally driven national development agendas globally4–6.
However, it also resulted in an intrinsic complexity that makes it dif-
ficult to assess if such development agendas truly benefit or protect
the environment5. For instance, SDG 9.1, the development of qual-
ity, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, cuts across all
three pillars of development, but its associated indicators prioritize
social and economic issues by focusing on rural population acces-
sibility and passenger or freight volumes without accounting for the
environmental impacts of such infrastructure development7. This
inability to capture the nuances of complex targets, especially when
it comes to environmental components, has been the basis of much
recent criticism5.
To evaluate the ability of the SDGs to reflect actual progress
towards biodiversity conservation, we (i) assessed countries’ perfor-
mances on the prescribed set of indicators and (ii) compared these
indicators against other independent and well-established measures
of environmental protection. We first isolated indicators and tar-
gets associated with the environment and assessed the relative per-
formance of 180 countries towards achieving the associated target
for each indicator (see Methods). This formed a current baseline
estimate of ‘environment-related’ SDG indicators, which we then
Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Republic of Singapore. 2Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation
1
Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. 3School of Geography, The University of
Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. 4Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British
Columbia, Canada. 5Wildlife Conservation Society, Global Conservation Program, Bronx, NY, USA. ✉e-mail: zengyiwen@nus.edu.sg; dbsctlr@nus.edu.sg
Nature Sustainability | www.nature.com/natsustain
compared against external measures of the environment. We also
compared the SDG indicator performance to other external socio-
economic indices, testing the potential of other non-environmental
factors to influence the environment-related SDGs.
Overall, we found that of the 247 SDG indicators prescribed by
the Inter-agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal
Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), 101 indicators were environment-related
based on the description of their corresponding targets7. These
included repeated indicators corresponding to different targets (see
Supplementary Table 1 for details)7. Although 26 indicators pos-
sessed insufficient data for analysis, the remaining 75 indicators
suggest a relatively high global baseline performance towards envi-
ronmental targets (Figs. 1 and 2). This positive trend, which, likely
because of our country-specific approach, contrasts with other
regional and global assessments8, is apparent in all SDGs possessing
at least one indicator where most countries performed close to the
associated target, apart from SDG 2, no hunger (Fig. 1).
Yet globally, threats to nature are known to have accelerated
over the past 50 years, resulting in changes to more than 75% of the
Earth’s surface and population declines in over 1 million species9,10.
With the already growing rates of extreme climate events and threats
associated with the burgeoning human population expected to con-
tinue to worsen in the coming years, a discrepancy between these
trends and the results from the prescribed environment-related
SDG indicators is clear9,11. This mismatch is apparent in our results,
with only ~7% of correlations between SDG indicators and exter-
nal indicators of biodiversity and environmental protection being
significantly positive (P < 0.05) (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 3).
Instead, a large proportion (~14%) of these associations are nega-
tive (P < 0.05) and a majority (~78%) are non-significant (Fig. 1),
suggesting that many of these indicators do not adequately reflect
progress towards environmental conservation goals. For instance,
it is unclear whether SDG 15.3.1 (percentage of degraded land in
a country) is a good indicator of efforts combating desertification,
restoring land and preserving life on land. While it reflects terres-
trial wilderness change and the Living Planet Index, it fails to do
so for human footprint, terrestrial threats and freshwater threats
(Fig. 1). The discrepancy between the SDG indicators and external
indicators is further reflected in the observation that of the 11 sepa-
rate measures of the current state of the environment, most point
to globally poorer performances, with human footprint being the
only indicator for which majority of countries score over 75 (Fig. 1).
By contrast, global performances are higher for socioeconomic
measures of development (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 3).
Brief Communication NaTure SusTaInabIlITy

120 land (SDG 15.3.1) tend to possess higher levels of social and eco-
nomic development across all measures considered12 (Fig. 1).

External indicators
Number of countries This disproportionate influence of social and economic factors
performing well
60 (score > 75)
is reflected across a large proportion of SDG indicators (~65%),
including indicators within SDG 15, degraded lands and invasive
SDG indicators species (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 3). While 22 of these indi-
0 60 120 180 cators are correlated with at least one measure of environmental
SDG indicators:
1 No
poverty
Disaster: lives conditions, some of these relationships appear to be less direct
or even spurious — such as of the one between the Food Loss
Disaster: cost
Disaster: regulation
Disaster: strategy

2 Zero
hunger
Nutrient balance
Genetic stores
Index and temperature anomalies (Fig. 1). These indirect
Breeds: risk
HIV
or spurious relationships, coupled with the high number of
3 Good health

non-significant and negative correlations of environmental SDG

and well-being Tuberculosis
Malaria

indicators to measures of actual biodiversity state, point towards a

Hepatitis B
Tropical diseases
Air pollution 1
Water pollution
Poisonings
masking rather than a synergistic effect of the SDGs on environ-
6 Clean water
and sanitation
Safe drinking water
Safe sanitation mental protection.
Treated wastewater
Water quality These findings suggest a lack of integration of environmental pri-
orities into countries’ developmental plans, which has been attrib-
Water use efficiency
Water stress
Water management
Water co-operation
Water extent
uted to a dearth of technical capacity and difficulty in coordinating
Water assistance
Water planning across administrative silos, especially in developing nations13. These
7 Affordable and
clean energy
Renewable energy
Energy efficiency issues, likely functioning in tandem with the lack of funds to moni-
Decent work and Material footprint
8 economic growth Local consumption
Tourism
tor and measure complex target progress, lead to simpler indicators
9 Industry, innovation Rural access
and infrastructure Passenger volume being used instead, resulting in the inability to adequately capture
Manufacturing value
Employment key nuances and the interlinkage of issues8,13. This, together with
the uneven data coverage for indicators, tends to favor social and
CO2 emissions
Infrastructure assistance

11 Sustainable economic issues rather than the environment5,13,14. Additionally,

cities Rural slums
and communities Transport access

with the current system of SDG indicators unable to incorporate

Land consumption
Nature sites
Disaster: affected
Disaster: cost
Waste collection telecoupled environmental impacts linked to international trade,
Air pollution 2
Disaster regulation the currently prescribed SDG framework’s efficacy in protecting
biodiversity is uncertain15.
Material footprint
12 Responsible
consumption Local consumption
and production
Food loss
Hazardous waste 1
Hazardous waste 2
However, a reformulation of the indicators would be more appli-
Recycling rates
Sustainability reporting
cable in a post-2030 agenda. Within the 2030 agenda, a greater focus
13 Climate
action
Fossil fuel subsidies
Disaster: affected should instead be placed on data collection and quantification, both
temporally and spatially, or the development of more reliable com-
Disaster: risk
Disaster: strategy
Plastic pollution
14 posite indicators within the existing framework. The treatment and
Life
below water Ocean acidification
Overfishing
Marine protected areas
Ocean science
formulation of such temporally and spatially resolved data have
15 Life
on land
Forest area
Protected areas allowed for a more nuanced evaluation of some indicators in recent
global assessments, which better reflects the current state of the
Forest biomass
Degraded lands
Mountain protected areas
Mountain green cover
Red List Index
environment8. Concurrently, greater funding (and incentives) needs
Resource policies
Illegal wildlife trade to be allocated to countries and administrative regions to aid in the
Invasive species
Biodiversity assistance collection of data for applications at finer spatial scales, especially
among developing nations13.
Biodiversity assistance
Illegal wildlife trade

External Assessments of global SDG trends and performance, such as pre-

Life expectancy index
Poverty index
Education index
Income index
Socio-demographic index
Human Development Index
Marine wilderness
Marine threats
Freshwater threats
Terrestrial wilderness change
Terrestrial wilderness
Intact forests
Terrestrial threats
Precipitation anomalies
Temperature anomalies
Living Planet Index
Human footprint

indicators:
vious works related to health, income and education, are vital in
Pearson's correlation coefficient r
between SDG indicators
shaping national and international policies16,17. These assessments
Socio-
and external indicators have promoted suitable investments, and our findings demonstrate
economic Biodiversity corresponding improvements towards achieving socioeconomic
–1.0 –0.5 0 0.5 1.0 development targets16,17. As biodiversity protection is a central
theme of the SDGs, its role in shaping the global pursuit of sus-
tainable development is undeniable4–6. Yet our results point out
Fig. 1 | Many SDG indicators do not adequately reflect changes in external fundamental inadequacies in the ability of the set of prescribed
indicators of successful biodiversity conservation. Bar charts (top- and indicators to protect biodiversity, and highlight the need for incor-
rightmost panels) show the number of countries performing well (score porating indicators that measure the actual state of, and threats to,
75–100) relative to the rest of the world across 75 environment-related global biodiversity. If these errors are not corrected, the SDGs could
SDG indicators (leftmost panel) and 17 external indicators of unknowingly promote environmental destruction in the name of
socioeconomic state and of the actual state of, and threats to, biodiversity sustainable development.
(bottom panel). A correlation matrix (middle panel), illustrated as a
heatmap, shows the r values of significant correlations (P < 0.05) between Methods
SDG and external indicators, with darker blue representing greater positive This study was conducted in three main steps. First, we selected the
environment-related targets and indicators from the 247 indicators prescribed
correlations and darker red representing more negative correlations. by IAEG-SDGs7. Specifically, we followed the environmental targets identified by
Elder et al.5, who based their selection criteria on keywords such as ‘environment’,
‘sustainability’ or ‘pollution’5. We then gathered data for every indicator that
A notably higher percentage (~41%) of the correlations between the matched these targets, aggregated to country-level, from a variety of sources (see
SDGs environmental indicators and external socioeconomic devel- Supplementary Table 1). These data were rescaled to 0–100, following previous
publications on the health-related SDG index and the Human Development
opment measures are significantly positive (P < 0.05), while only Index16. Owing to the lack of specific numerical targets associated with most
~7% are significantly negative (P < 0.05) and 51% are non-significant environmental SDG targets, we instead looked at country performances relative
(Fig. 1). For example, countries with a lower percentage of degraded to global performance, with the lowest/worst performance towards achieving

Nature Sustainability | www.nature.com/natsustain

NaTure SusTaInabIlITy Brief Communication
244 SDG indicators

101 ‘environment-related’ SDG indicators

a 52 SDG indicators with positive correlations b 23 SDG indicators with negative

or no correlations
SDG indicators
Disaster: cost Disaster regulation
15 Forest biomass 1
Disaster: regulation Disaster: affected
8 Tourism
11
7 Renewable energy
Biodiversity 2 Genetic: stores Disaster: cost
indicators Water assistance Transport access
14 Plastic pollution
Water planning
15 Forest area Socioeconomic Fossil fuel subsidies
12
1 Disaster: strategy indicators 6 Water quality Hazardous waste 2

Water stress Disaster: affected

Breeds: risk
2 13
Water use efficiency Disaster: risk
Nutrient balance
Infrastructure assistance Ocean acidification
Water co-operation 9
6 14
Passenger volume Ocean science
Water extent

11 Land consumption Biodiversity assistance

15
12 Food loss Biodiversity assistance

13 Disaster: strategy Resource policies

14 Overfishing

Illegal wildlife trade

Illegal wildlife trade

15
Mountain green cover

Red List Index

11 Air pollution c
3 Poisonings
26 SDG indicators with insufficient data
8 Local consumption Education: sustainability Climate change policy
4
Manufacturing value Clean energy assistance Climate change education
9
7
Rural access Energy efficiency: funding Climate awareness
13
Rural slums 8 Sustainable tourism 1 Climate change funding
11
Waste collection Urban planning Climate capacity building
12 Local consumption City green spaces Ocean management
15 Degraded lands Safe spaces Illegal fishing policy
Air pollution 1 11 Integrated city planning Sustainable fisheries
14
Hepatitis B Disaster: participation Small-scale fisheries
3
Tuberculosis Sustainable construction Law of the sea
Water pollution Biodiversity planning
Sustainable consumption 1 15
Safe drinking water Sustainable procurement
6 Safe sanitation 12 Education: sustainability
Treated wastewater
Sustainable consumption 2
8 Material footprint
Sustainable tourism 2
11 Nature sites

12 Material footprint

15 Invasive species

3 Tropical diseases

6 Water management

9 CO2 emissions

1 Disaster: lives

3 HIV

14 Marine protected areas

15 Protected areas

3 Malaria

7 Energy efficiency

9 Employment

Hazardous waste 1

12 Recycling rates

Sustainability reporting

15 Mountain protected areas

0 3 6 9
Number of significant correlations

Fig. 2 | Evaluation of the efficacy of environment-related SDG indicators, based on 17 external indicators of the current state of biodiversity and
socioeconomic development. Of the 247 SDG indicators, 101 were linked to the environment based on their associated targets. a,b, Of these, 52 indicators
showed positive correlations to the external indicators (a), and 23 indicators showed either negative or no correlations (b). c, 26 indicators possessed
insufficient data for this assessment of efficacy.

Nature Sustainability | www.nature.com/natsustain

Brief Communication
the corresponding target being assigned a score of 0 and the highest/best being
assigned a score of 100. These scores were then used in Eq. (1) to calculate indicator
performances (Supplementary Fig. 1).
actual country value�minimum global value
indicator performance ¼ maximum global value�minimum global value ´ 100 ð1Þ
In doing so, we provided a point of reference for comparison of performance
that allows for country-specific evaluations rather than regional or global
assessments8.
Second, we correlated these SDG indicator datasets to 11 common and
independent measures of environment or biodiversity. These variables were
chosen as they have often been shown to reflect the current state of biodiversity
(for example, the Living Planet Index) or the environment (for example, terrestrial
and marine wilderness) as well as the current level of threat (for example, marine,
freshwater and terrestrial threats)3,9,18,19. Data were gathered from a variety of
sources (see Supplementary Table 2), aggregated to the country level and rescaled
following the techniques described above16 (Supplementary Fig. 2). Higher scores
here indicate lower impacts on biodiversity (for example, higher population
numbers) and the environment (for example, greater amounts of wilderness) and
lower threat levels, reflecting general conservation goals.
Lastly, we applied the same correlation analyses to six measures of social and/
or economic conditions that are commonly used to measure socioeconomic
development12,16. These data represented previously determined indices (see
Supplementary Table 2) that were calculated to the country level, and we rescaled
the data to match earlier analyses. Correlation coefficients (Pearson’s r) were used
to denote the degree of correlation, and p values less than 0.05 were considered
significant. These parameters were used to form a correlation matrix between
the SDG indicators and other measures of environmental, social and economic
performance and illustrated as a heatmap (Fig. 1). All analyses were performed in
R v 3.6.0 (ref. 20).
Reporting Summary. Further information on research design is available in the
Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in Supplementary
Figs. 1 and 2, and raw data can be provided from the corresponding authors upon
request.
Code availability
All R scripts used to process the data are available from the corresponding authors
upon request.
Received: 30 March 2020; Accepted: 20 May 2020;
Published: xx xx xxxx
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Acknowledgements
We thank S. Z. Z. Rahim and D. C. J. Yeo for their contributions towards improving
this paper. Y.Z. and L.R.C. acknowledge support from the National Research
Foundation (NRF) Singapore under its Commonwealth Research Fellowship grant
NRF-CSC-ICFC2017-05.
Author contributions
Y.Z. and L.R.C. conceived the study. Y.Z. carried out the analyses. Y.Z., S.M., R.K.R., O.V.,
J.E.M.W. and L.R.C. contributed discussions and modelling insights. Y.Z., S.M., R.K.R.,
O.V., J.E.M.W. and L.R.C. wrote the manuscript.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Supplementary information is available for this paper at https://doi.org/10.1038/
s41893-020-0555-0.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Y.Z. or L.R.C.
Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2020
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 nature research | reporting summary
Corresponding author(s): Zeng Yiwen; L Roman Carrasco
Last updated by author(s): May 13, 2020

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Research sample Performance for 180 countries across the world was determined via the available datasets.

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