The paradigm of sustainability and global governance in the 2030 Agenda

Abstract

This text aims to question the paradigm of sustainability as a guide to ensuring the provision of public goods and services that underlie the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. This questioning is based on the assumption that global governance emanating from the implementation and operation of the 2030 Agenda has favored the perpetuation of the capitalist system through market mechanisms, the creation of public-private partnerships, among others, in favor of the active participation of non-State actors in areas that were previously exclusive to States.
Therefore, this work defends the hypothesis that this dynamic has contributed to the retreat of the state in favor of the market. In this sense, we argue that the trap of sustainability lies in the fact that, although this paradigm promises a balance between the economy, society, and the environment, its results tend to favor the legitimacy of free market through a discourse that makes it invisible or minimizes its social and environmental costs.