Ten years ago, the world united around an unprecedented promise: to ensure prosperity for all within the planet’s limits. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in 2015, represented the first global pact that aligned economy, society, and environment under a single framework. For the first time, governments worldwide recognized that inequality, climate collapse, and biodiversity loss are not separate problems — they are symptoms of the same unbalanced system. Yet, according to the Sustainable Development Report 2025, five years from the deadline, the assessment is sobering. Only 17% of targets are on track, nearly half are progressing slowly, and one in five has regressed. Progress is uneven, crises multiply, and trust in international cooperation weakens. Still, the idea of a common agenda for the planet has never been more necessary.
This was the starting point for the webinar “What Comes After 2030? Thinking about the Future of the SDGs”, hosted by CATÓLICA-LISBON - Center for Responsible Business and Leadership, in partnership with SDSN Portugal. The event, which kicked off a series of three debates on the future of the 2030 Agenda, brought together leading figures such as John Thwaites (Monash University), María Cortés Puch (UN SDSN), and Maximilian Schnippering (Siemens Gamesa). The message was clear: 2030 should not mark the end of the agenda — it should mark the beginning of its reinvention.
John Thwaites, who participated in the original SDG negotiations in New York, recalled “the emotion of an unprecedented global consensus” but issued a warning: “We must fight to preserve the best elements of the agenda — its vision and coherence — and extend it well beyond 2030.” For the Australian academic, the future challenge is not merely creating new targets, but addressing governance, measurement, and implementation gaps.
Thwaites advocated for three areas of transformation. First, rethinking the SDG framework itself: allowing goals to evolve dynamically and scientifically rather than remaining fixed for fifteen years. Inspired by the IPCC model, he proposes that the UN establish a permanent scientific panel to periodically assess the adequacy of global targets. Second, strengthening global governance, making monitoring mandatory and comparable — “just like the Nationally Determined Contributions in the Paris Agreement.” Third, focusing on implementation, reinforcing the role of education and applied science. “Universities must lead the way,” he stated. “Not only through knowledge, but through credibility and the capacity to generate informed hope,” highlighting the stabilizing role that academia plays in a rapidly changing, unstable world.
This vision resonates with proposals from the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute, which are already working on a post-2030 framework based on science, regional cooperation, and continuous evaluation. As the article Thought Leadership for a Post-2030 Agenda argues, the next global framework should learn from the mistakes of Agenda 21 (the 1992 Rio Earth Summit action plan) and the SDG process itself, replacing static goal lists with living mechanisms for collective learning and correction.
In her intervention, María Cortés Puch, Vice President of UN SDSN, was even more direct: “The SDGs were the answer to the question ‘what is the future we want?’ — and today we are dangerously close to the opposite.”
Citing the Sustainable Development Report 2025, she noted that “none of the 17 goals are fully on track” and that, since the pandemic, most countries have regressed in areas such as press freedom, corruption perception, and biodiversity loss. Nevertheless, 193 countries remain committed. “This is the only global roadmap we have to tackle the crises around us,” she said.
Continuity alone is not enough. According to María Cortés Puch, the world has changed more in the past five years than in the previous two decades: new technologies, new risks, new conflicts. The next phase, often called SDG 2.0, must combine temporal extension with substantive updates. It will include more ambitious commitments on biodiversity (aligned with the Montreal-Kunming Agreement), new approaches to AI governance, and deep reforms in the global financial architecture.
“Three billion people live in countries that pay more in debt interest than they invest in health and education,” Thwaites also reminded, echoing the Seville Charter on Financing for Development. This year’s Seville conference marked a turning point in the global debate: for the first time, a coalition of countries and institutions advocated for a fairer international tax system, stronger development banks, and debt relief mechanisms for vulnerable nations. The report “Charting Europe’s Course to a Post-2030 Framework”, cited during the webinar, reinforces this vision: decarbonization must be at the heart of European competitiveness, and investment in clean energy, industrial innovation, and affordable housing forms the foundation of a new green social economy. President Ursula von der Leyen argues that Europe’s future will depend on its ability to unite climate ambition, social justice, and strategic autonomy.
From the business perspective, Maximilian Schnippering, global head of sustainability at Siemens Gamesa, offered a practical view — reflecting a new generation of companies. For him, the SDGs provided “a common language and a moral compass” that aligned corporate strategies. “But business operates with micro-indicators, while the SDGs are macro-indicators,” he warned.
With insight and self-critique, he acknowledged that initial enthusiasm has given way to fatigue and dispersion amid successive crises. “Many companies have integrated the SDGs into their strategies, but without clear, mandatory metrics, it is impossible to measure real impact.” He therefore argues that the new agenda must link sustainability to economic value, with interconnected financial, social, and environmental metrics. “We need to turn the SDGs into market imperatives,” he said. “Only then will sustainability also be competitive.”
Schnippering presented a bold vision: the post-2030 era should create a global sustainability market, where regulatory and fiscal incentives reward companies demonstrating positive impact and penalize those externalizing social and environmental costs. “Sustainable investment must cease to be a voluntary exception and become the financial norm.” His words reflect the paradigm shift emerging in Europe, through the European Green Deal Industrial Plan and the new CSRD Directive, which requires companies to report ESG performance with the same rigor as financial results. Europe’s future competitiveness, as Mario Draghi observed in his 2024 report, will depend on mobilizing €800 billion annually in sustainable investment, linking innovation, resilience, and well-being.
As the debate progressed, one perception was unanimous: the world is off track, but it can no longer turn back. Post-2030 will not be a simple extension of deadlines — it will redefine the global social contract. A contract that acknowledges three fundamental truths.
The first is that poverty and inequality are the starting point, not the endpoint. This year’s Nature Sustainability editorial was blunt: “Without addressing poverty and inequality, it will be impossible to build a shared vision of the future.” The new global framework must place these dimensions at its center, connecting them to the relationship between economy and nature. Growth is only legitimate if it respects planetary boundaries and redistributes opportunities.
The second is that sustainability must be financially viable and attractive. Impact investment, green finance, and just transition mechanisms must move from the margins to the center of global finance. As the World Economic Forum notes, the annual SDG financing gap exceeds $4 trillion, and half of the planet faces unsustainable debt burdens. Solutions will require financial patience, hybrid partnerships, and instruments that value long-term outcomes — concepts championed by economists like Mariana Mazzucato and Jeffrey Sachs.
The third is that trust and international cooperation are at risk but can be renewed through knowledge. “Universities may be the last global space of trust,” said Thwaites. “When the world fragments, science can be what unites us.” In an era of fatigued multilateralism, the academic and scientific community emerges as a new, quiet diplomacy: connecting networks, mediating cultures, and keeping the flame of factual truth alive.
For Portugal, this transition represents a unique opportunity. Alliances among academia, the private sector, and international networks such as SDSN can position the country as a laboratory for regenerative innovation — a space where sustainability and competitiveness reinforce each other. With excellent universities, emerging tech companies, and long-term visionary foundations, Portugal can lead the next phase of the impact economy, showing that growth and care are, ultimately, the same verb.
Near the close of the webinar, Schnippering left a line that captures the spirit of this new era: “The next decade will not be about doing ‘less harm,’ but about doing ‘more good’ — and doing it with metrics, investment, and courage.”
This is precisely what sets this moment apart. It is not only about meeting goals. It is about relearning cooperation in a world weary of disappointments, restoring trust among science, politics, and citizens, and turning fatigue into vision. As Nature Sustainability wrote, “we may not achieve in five years what we failed to in ten,” but we can still — as María Cortés Puch reminded — “use the best map we have ever had to find our way again.”
2030 is not the end. It is the turning point for the future we still want — if we have the clarity to imagine it and the courage to build it.
Mafalda Sarmento, Researcher and Consultant no Center for Responsible Business and Leadership at CATÓLICA-LISBON