FRIAS Kolloquium - Matthias Kranke

How Are We Doing? Reckoning with Global Sustainability Benchmarks

Our knowledge of socio-ecological problems is mediated through various quantitative tools, including indicators, indices and rankings. Such benchmarks delineate the parameters of political debate about (un)sustainability: What counts as “sustainable” and “unsustainable”? What are the causes of unsustainability? What are appropriate measures to achieve sustainability? And ultimately, who is responsible and who needs to act? Yet global sustainability benchmarks are in themselves highly political given contingent design and methodological choices that shape outputs. This talk provides a general overview of the relevance of global sustainability benchmarks and discusses specific examples revolving around the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. These illustrations point to some of ways in which representations of socio-ecological issues intervene in our understandings of and political debates about them.