The latest Sustainable Development Report 2025 reveals that only 17 percent of the goals are on track globally. Many critical goals, such as climate, biodiversity, and reducing inequality, are not just stalling but regressing. A recent Nature Sustainability study reaches an even more alarming conclusion: none of the 17 SDGs are currently on course to be met by 2030, and most will likely miss the mark unless "transformative change" is embraced immediately.
And yet, the tone around the SDGs remains stubbornly cheerful. We still gather to trade best practices and highlight “impact,” but the deeper reality is avoided: that the world is not on track, and in many cases, the systems we depend on are themselves the problem. We care, yes. But not enough to change the system we benefit from. We want sustainability—as long as it doesn’t disrupt our comfort. That is the tension at the heart of the SDGs today. We support ambition in principle, but dodge the hard questions in practice: what are we willing to give up, change, or regulate to make those goals real?
This selective engagement is most visible in the financial sector. Banks, asset managers, pension funds, many now proudly report how their activities contribute to SDG progress. They issue green bonds, align portfolios, publish glossy reports. But rarely do they show what their capital flows destroy. Investments in fossil infrastructure, in deforestation-linked industries, in exploitative labour supply chains, these are not part of the sustainability story they tell. There is no standard, no obligation, and no penalty for financing the very forces that stall the SDGs.
As it stands, financial institutions are allowed to cherry-pick the goals that flatter them, while ignoring the rest. SDG 13? Climate action? Tick. SDG 3? Health? Tick. SDG 10? Inequality? That’s someone else’s problem. It’s a buffet approach, progress without pain. And it reduces the SDGs from public policy to reputational marketing.
To move forward, we need to stop pretending we are doing well if we concentrate on very tiny sub-targets. We need to start doing what really matters.
That means reforming the SDG agenda itself, something even its architects now acknowledge. The goals are too many, too broad, sometimes contradictory. Managing complexity has become a goal in itself, when what we need is direction. A smaller set of priorities could offer sharper political focus and greater legitimacy. We need to refocus around core human and planetary thresholds: eradicating poverty, reducing inequality, and respecting ecological boundaries.
We also need to ensure that climate action is not just technically effective, but socially just. Not just in language, but in lived outcomes. A transition that drives up energy poverty or deepens social divides is not a transition worth having. Sustainability without equity isn’t sustainable. And equity without a livable planet isn’t equity at all.
For finance it means moving beyond voluntary alignment. Financial institutions must be required to disclose how their activities align with, and deviate from, the SDGs. Not just their positive contributions, but also their negative impacts. This requires harmonised standards, public disclosure, and independent verification. It also means regulators must begin treating SDG destruction as a financial risk, because it is. Ecological breakdown, social instability, and growing inequality are not abstract concerns. They will shape the markets of the future.
Public finance has a role to play too. When governments continue to subsidise fossil fuels, deregulate harmful industries, or greenlight deforestation, they are actively undermining the SDGs they once signed. And when public investment fails to reach the places and people who need it most, the legitimacy of the entire agenda erodes.
This ten-year anniversary should not be a moment of celebration. It should be a moment of truth. The SDGs reflected a powerful global ambition. But that ambition has not yet changed the fundamentals. If we want to salvage the next five years, we must tighten the agenda, demand real accountability from those with financial power, and start prioritising what matters most.
Because the choice is no longer between progress and delay. It’s between truth and illusion.