The global order that once defined prosperity and progress, anchored in Western institutions and values largely shaped by the United States, is unravelling. That is, the unipolar era in which America set the rules for the rest of the world is ending.
In its place, a new constellation of powers is emerging, with Asia at the forefront. Yet amidst this shift in economic and political gravity, the frameworks guiding “sustainable development” remain firmly rooted in the old order’s worldview.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ESG standards and climate finance mechanisms still reflect assumptions born from the Global North—technocratic, metric-heavy and often detached from the lived realities of the Global South. This is the paradox of our time: Asia is rising, but the paradigms are not changing.
Across the region, governments and corporations are racing to align with global sustainability norms. Green bonds are being issued, ESG scores reported and SDG targets integrated into national plans.
On paper, Asia looks like a model pupil. But dig deeper and a troubling pattern emerges: sustainability has become a performance, more about signaling alignment than pursuing actual transformation.
Many countries approach SDGs and ESG as compliance checklists, not as contextual pathways of change. The result is a wave of ESG-washing, carbon colonialism disguised as “energy transition” and a proliferation of projects that bear the sustainability label but fail to address inequality, ecological degradation or the erosion of local cultures.
This is not a failure of ambition. It is a failure of imagination.
Sustainability frameworks today still carry the DNA of Bretton Woods logic—growth-centered, finance-driven and governed by institutions where the Global South has little real voice.
Even well-intentioned instruments like climate finance often come with rules that reflect the risk appetites of Western investors, not the priorities of frontline communities.
Asia’s diversity—its civilizational wisdoms, ecological traditions, and collective ways of living—is rarely acknowledged as a source of sustainability. Instead, the region is cast as a testing ground for external models: carbon trading, green taxonomy and blended finance.
These tools may have value, but when imposed without adaptation, they risk becoming the new tools of dependency rather than emancipation.
If Asia continues down this path, it may succeed in appearing sustainable while failing to build systems that are resilient, just and rooted in local meaning.
To break free, Asia needs to reclaim its narrative and redefine what sustainability means—on its own terms. This is not about rejecting the global agenda, but rather reimagining it from the inside out. That is, sustainability must move beyond carbon metrics and GDP growth painted green.
In many Asian cultures, the idea of balance—between humans and nature, individual and community, material and spiritual—has long existed. These are not romanticized relics; they are living philosophies that can inform a richer, more grounded model of development.
Global frameworks love numbers. But not everything that matters can be measured. ESG scores and SDG dashboards cannot capture the strength of a community, the resilience of local economies or the dignity of indigenous governance systems. Asia must define success by its own indicators—ones that reflect life, not just compliance.
Transforming sustainability from a borrowed framework into an endogenous movement also requires courageous institutions. Governments, universities, civil society and businesses must take risks: to pilot alternative models, to question imported standards and to assert the legitimacy of home-grown innovations.
The question is no longer whether Asia can meet global standards of sustainability. The real question is whether the world is ready to meet Asia’s.
In a fractured world, Asia does not need to become a hegemon. It does not need to “win” the sustainability race. Indeed, what it can offer is far more powerful: a new compass, one that centers dignity, relationality and regeneration rather than control, extraction and cosmetic green branding.
Already, seeds of this paradigm exist. From the adat forests of Indonesia to the eco-spiritualism of Bhutan, from cooperative farming in Vietnam to localized disaster governance in the Philippines, Asia is not a blank slate. It is a wellspring of living alternatives hidden in plain sight.
The challenge is not the absence of models – it is the lack of recognition. The post-hegemonic world will be defined not just by shifts in power, but by shifts in meaning.
And in this search for new foundations, sustainability cannot remain a managerial tool of global finance: it must become a civilizational question. Who defines what is worth sustaining? Whose knowledge counts? Whose future are we protecting?
If these questions remain unanswered—or worse, answered only by those at Davos or on Wall Street—then even the greenest of futures may be built on the same old exclusions. But if Asia dares to speak from its roots, not just its rise, it could offer what the world sorely lacks: a sustainability that is not a slogan, but a soul.
Setyo Budiantoro is Nexus Strategist at The Prakarsa, MIT Sloan IDEAS Fellow 2024 and member of the advisory committee of Fair Finance Asia
