Justice Concerns in SDG 12: The Problem of Missing Consumption Limits

As part of Agenda 2030, SDG 12 aims to offer a long-term vision for transforming existing unsustainable consumption and production patterns. These changes are bound to affect the lifestyles and livelihoods of billions of people and give rise to a multitude of morally relevant questions and trade-offs concerning matters of intra- and intergenerational (re)distribution. Among these moral dilemmas is the problem of setting consumption limits, especially at the upper tail of wealth distribution. This position piece argues that failure to translate scientific consensus on the biophysical limits of Earth into upper consumption limits, and the absence of references to consumption limits in Agenda 2030 and the SDGs, which can be explained in terms of moral corruption, leads to difficult moral choices being passed onto future generations.