Ethics in Action for Sustainable Development

The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, comprise an ambitious and sweeping agenda that unites economic, social, and environmental aims. What resources do the world’s religious and secular traditions offer in support of these objectives? Which principles do these traditions hold in common, and how can these shared values help advance global goals?

This book presents an in-depth and deeply engaged conversation among interfaith religious leaders and interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners in pursuit of an ethical consensus that could ground sustainable development efforts. Drawing on more than two years of close-knit discussions convened by Jeffrey D. Sachs and Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, it offers an extensive and inclusive vision of how to promote human flourishing. The book features theological, philosophical, and ethical deliberations of great diversity and depth on the challenges of sustainable development, addressing questions of poverty, environmental justice, peace, conflict, and the future of work. It includes consensus statements on the moral imperatives of sustainable development, introductions to seven major religious traditions and their conceptions of the common good, and thematic reflections. Wide-ranging and urgent, this book represents a major contribution to interreligious dialogue and to the articulation of a shared global ethics.

The book features a foreword by Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University as well as president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and he has been an advisor to three UN secretaries-general.

Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo is a Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Vescovio, Italy, and former chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences.

Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and codirector of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at Duke University.

William Vendley is secretary general emeritus of Religions for Peace International and vice president and senior advisor for religion at the Fetzer Institute.

Anthony Annett is a Gabelli Fellow at Fordham University and senior advisor at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Jesse Thorson is program manager at the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.