The Beacon Project: Using Biodiversity and Energy justice to resolve Conflicts between Sustainable Development Goals

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promote global economic and social prosperity while simultaneously seeking to protect the environment. All UN member states are signatories to achieving SDGs under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, competing objectives of SDGs require decision-makers to trade-off SDGs, leading to damaging and unequal distribution of costs and benefits for people and the environment, which ultimately prevents sustainable development. To address this global problem I will apply a novel approach using hydropower as a model system, to deliver the critical step change in interdisciplinary research needed to quantify the trade-offs, conflicts and synergies between SDGs and between stakeholders. This project will identify, forecast, prevent and mitigate conflicts associated with development processes, to achieve equitable sustainable development now and beyond the 2030 sustainable development targets.

Our global energy dilemma highlights and exemplifies trade-offs between SDGs. The increasing human population and growing energy demand challenges whether we can have secure, affordable and equitable energy without adversely affecting people and the environment. Solving the multifaceted challenges presented by the global energy dilemma has been hindered by the historic separation of environmental and social sciences and the humanities. This project combines these disciplines to address the complexity of energy development, stakeholder justice, and environmental sustainability. The overall aim of the project is to deliver the tools needed for equitable decision-making, by designing an innovative framework for decision-makers that explicitly considers the complex social-environmental dimensions of development.

Large hydropower schemes (dam height >15 m) bring conflicts between SDGs and stakeholders into sharp focus. More than 9700 large hydropower dams have been constructed worldwide providing energy and boosting industrial infrastructure development. However, such dams have displaced an estimated 40-80 million people, and, through reservoir creation and river flow disruption, we have lost environments that are important for biodiversity and climate change mitigation. Thus, hydropower development puts significant pressure on SDGs that focus on local livelihoods and food security, justice and accountability, water, ecosystems and global biodiversity. Despite uncertainty over future energy gains under changing climatic and rainfall patterns, national and international investment for new dams is rising.

To deliver the tools needed to ensure development processes are equitable and accountable, this project will engage multiple stakeholders, including those traditionally marginalised in the decision-making process, alongside high-level decision-makers across different socio-political and environmental contexts in Brazil, Kazakhstan, India and Scotland. Data and methods from social-environmental surveys, Earth observation, and the energy justice framework will be integrated throughout this project to develop a toolkit for local people, NGOs, civil society, and high-level decision-makers to increase equity and transparency of development processes. A network of more than 15 world-leading project partners including NGOs, international institutions, expert advisors and academic institutions actively support this research.

To achieve international sustainable development, conflicts between SDGs and stakeholders must be prevented and resolved. This project delivers the innovative interdisciplinary tools needed to change current development decision-making practice to explicitly incorporate the complex social-environmental dimensions of development. Thus, this project will ensure that global development is equitable and sustainable now and beyond the 2030 targets.

All UN member states are signatories to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Conflicts between SDGs and between stakeholders with competing objectives prevents achievement of sustainable development. The innovative decision-making framework developed in this project, which provides the mechanisms to increase the equity, transparency and accountability of development processes will therefore be of broad direct and indirect benefit to local people, NGOs, civil society, the private sector and financing bodies, governments and intergovernmental panels. Wider impact is ensured because the decision-making framework is scalable and adaptable to different scenarios of SDG conflict.

At the global level, key beneficiaries of the decision-making framework are high-level decision-makers such as UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF), which sets global sustainable development policy. This project delivers the evidence and tools to tackle conflicts between SDGs, which will therefore assist in setting the sustainable development agenda beyond the 2030 targets. The framework will also provide the tools for international financial institutions e.g. The World Bank and private sector entities responsible for large infrastructure development, to plan projects that fully consider and mitigate the social-environmental dimensions of development through space and time. The evidence and tools produced by this project therefore benefit local people, NGOs and those working in human rights and environmental law, by increasing the equity, transparency and accountability of development processes.

In the UK, this project will provide the pathways to change sustainable development strategy that fully considers the complexities of energy development, stakeholder justice, and environmental sustainability. This project works in Scotland specifically and the evidence and tools for equitable development will therefore benefit the Scottish Government Hydro Nation programme, which is committed to developing water resources for maximum economic benefit both in Scotland and internationally.

Due to the wide range of direct and indirect beneficiaries, including local people, national decision-makers, NGOs and intergovernmental panels, outputs from this project have been designed to be widely accessible, including through an innovative visualisation of global energy justice related to dam development. All data will be permanently available and accessible via the University of Stirling dataSTORRE repository. A dedicated project website will describe and signpost all project activity and infographics for project outputs will be produced, ensuring maximum openness of the project.

Timescales for impact:

Over the project lifetime (0-7 years)
- Local people traditionally marginalised in decision-making
- Groups working on adaptive management solutions e.g. Amazon Dams Network
- Human rights and energy lawyers seeking mechanisms for increased accountability and equity in development decision-making e.g. AIDA Americas
- Project partners sharing knowledge and building capacity via 'partner forum'

Mid-project (4 years)
- UN High Level Political Forum
- NGOs e.g. International Land Coalition and International Institute of Environment and Development seeking evidence and mechanisms for sustainable development
- Scottish Government Hydro Nation programme
- Public interest via visualisation of energy justice
- International funding institutions and private sector developing large infrastructure

Long-term (7+ years)
- Lasting benefits to stakeholder groups engaged in project workshops, by building the foundation for continued dialogue between different stakeholders at the local and national scales
- Civil society via change in global sustainable development policy by improved consideration of the complexities of energy development, stakeholder justice, and environmental sustainability