1. A Sustainable Europe

1.2 The path for transitions

No country in the world can meet basic needs for its citizens without transgressing planetary boundaries to some extent. Research and innovation enable and accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable and fair society.

Our climate and environment, economy and society are experiencing profound changes that will fundamentally alter our current way of life.

Against a backdrop of rapid technological change that is redefining our economies and societies, these challenges call for three deep transformations – ecological, economic and societal.

In this context, the EU and its Member States have signed up to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that specifies 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets to guide the transition towards sustainable development.

Economic, social, and environmental sustainability are not separate: they are interdependent and build upon one another.

These interconnections also imply that there are trade-offs and synergies between the SDGs. The key challenge lies in making the right policy choices to leverage the synergies and minimise the potential trade-offs among the SDGs.

Sustainability implies that we should thrive in a safe and just space between planetary boundaries and social boundaries.

On the one hand, an environmental ceiling of planetary boundaries should not be crossed as this would mean unacceptable environmental degradation and potential tipping points in Earth systems.

On the other hand, many dimensions of human deprivation lie below the social foundations.

Currently, no country in the world seems to be able to meet its citizens’ basic needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use.

Although Europe achieves most of the social thresholds, it does so by transgressing the safe levels for almost all biophysical boundaries. The only one it does not exceed is water use.

The situation in the United States is similar to the EU, with most social thresholds achieved and biophysical boundaries transgressed. In comparison, China presents more shortfalls regarding the social dimensions but less overshoot on the biophysical aspects.

This suggests that countries that do well on the social aspects are using resources at an unsustainable level.

This shows the challenge of achieving social thresholds while not exceeding the biophysical boundaries, using resources at a level that is high enough to meet people’s basic needs (the social foundation) but not higher than the ecological ceiling.

The interconnection between social, economic and environmental issues calls for systemic change in which R&I plays a key role.

Cross-cutting policies such as R&I will play a key role in achieving sustainable development. They have the unique capacity to set directionality without being prescriptive, and to create synergies across policies to increase the overall impact. Science and technology are key levers for the transformation required to address the SDGs.

However, R&I will need to interact with other levers, such as governance, economy and finance, and individual and collective action, in order to bring about the transformations required to address the SDGs.