The European Laudato Si’ Alliance welcomes the newly launched UN Roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth, recognising it as a timely and much-needed contribution to debates on the future of sustainable development and the next set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At a moment of deep ecological and social crisis, the Roadmap challenges the widespread assumption that endless economic growth can coexist with climate justice and respect for planetary boundaries. Instead, it proposes a different vision: economies intentionally designed to allow both people and the planet to thrive. The Roadmap puts forward a comprehensive set of policy options, ranging from immediate reforms to long-term structural transformations, which governments and institutions can adapt to their specific contexts.
The urgency of such a shift is clear. Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have already been exceeded, global material extraction has tripled since the 1970s, and Europe’s material footprint remains more than double what is considered sustainable and just. Continuing to pursue limitless growth on a finite planet is no longer viable, it deepens ecological breakdown and exacerbates inequalities.
The UN Roadmap echoes a core message of Laudato Si’: the ecological crisis is inseparable from the social one. It underlines how climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and resource depletion disproportionately affect people living in poverty. In response, it calls for climate justice, equitable access to natural resources, community-based governance and socially just low‑carbon transitions. Among its proposals are science-based caps on resource use and emissions, stronger governance of critical minerals, protection against land grabbing, support for agroecology and increased financing for loss and damage.
For ELSiA, the Roadmap aligns deeply with Catholic Social Teaching and recent calls from Pope Francis to place human dignity, justice and the common good at the centre of economic life. Moving beyond an economic model focused on output alone, the Roadmap offers a concrete framework for reimagining our systems around wellbeing, human rights and care for our common home.
ELSiA therefore urges the European Union to take up the UN Roadmap as a guiding framework for its ecological and social policies, ensuring that environmental sustainability and human dignity go hand in hand.
Photo credits: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (CIDSE) In Gabura Island, a woman is talking over the phone with her family, powered by solar energy connected to her home.
