Making America A Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all

Making America a Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all

Governing for Sustainability: Accelerating the Transition to a Sustainable Society

Sustainable development may be one of the most important and potentially transformational ideas to come out of the last century. The ultimate objectives of sustainable development are freedom, opportunity, justice, and quality of life for everyone in this and future generations. While the United States has a substantial body of environmental and social protection laws, we are far from being a sustainable society. The question is what to do.This book provides a detailed set of recommendations for federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local governments, as well as the private sector and civil society organized around the United Nations\u27 Sustainable Development Goals. The various contributions that personal behavior can make toward both public and private governance are included as well. These recommendations would help make America a better place for all. Every American has a role to play

We Are All Sustainability Lawyers Now

As this article explains, sustainable development grows out of environmental and natural resources law, but it is different in many ways. American environmental lawyers, like most Americans, tend to see sustainable development through the lens of environmental law and the overall policy it represents, and thus miss the transformative potential of this framework. Sustainable development also does not have the kind of “heft” or visibility environmental law does because so much of it comes from international conferences and agreements that are not considered “law.”If the United States remains stuck in seeing environmental protection largely or entirely through the lens of environmental law, or even environmental and energy law, we are not going to get the environmental protection we need. Nor are we going to get the kind of economic development, social wellbeing, and peace and security that will be essential in the decades to come. As other countries, such as many in Europe as well as China and Japan, closely focus on coordinating across environmental, economic, and social goals, our own myopia will likely put the U.S. at a long-term competitive disadvantage.What needs to be done to achieve a sustainable America? This article describes the many specific recommendations for action published by the Environmental Law Institute over three decades. They make clear that while all of us have a role to play in achieving a sustainable society, regardless of where we live, what kind of work we do, and whatever our skills and abilities, environmental lawyers in particular need to reimagine ourselves as sustainability lawyers

Liberating Sustainable Development From Its Non-Historical Shackles

In this Article, we argue that sustainable development is historically a much broader and more societally beneficial concept than it is often understood to be, and that it is often limited, particularly in the United States, by the supposition that it is just about the environment, or about environmental and energy law. If we really want to understand sustainable development, in other words, we need to liberate it from its non-historical shackles.Sustainable development is a broad-spectrum conceptual framework for fostering human wellbeing by integrating environmental protection and social wellbeing with economic development and peace and security. It does so in a way that seeks to optimize all of them concurrently, instead of treating them as inherently opposing or unrelated concepts. At its core, sustainable development would transform how Americans conceive of and pursue environmental protection—and over time the law that supports and drives development. Sustainable development has the substantive capacity to be one of the most important and potentially transformational ideas to come out of the last century. Some scholars have described it as an idea or principle of the same level of fundamental importance as freedom, equality, and justice.This Article provides an overview of the history of sustainable development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015, showing that sustainable development has consistently been about changing development patterns, and not simply about the environment. It then shows the quite different and more environmentally-oriented and environmental-law-oriented way that sustainable development has been framed in the Unites States—sustainable development’s non-historical shackles. The Article explains two key benefits of unshackling sustainable development from this limiting perspective. Sustainable development and particularly the SDGs can enrich and strengthen nearly all U.S. policymaking by helping to spot issues and develop law reform agendas. In addition, sustainable development can activate all stakeholders, and is already doing so—something that is vitally necessary if we are to effectively address the many challenges we now face

Making America A Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all

Making America a Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all

Making America A Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all