Unsustainaburger

The meat-industrial-complex is a global production and consumption chain that systematically violates human rights, particularly those of workers, and degrades the environment. From food security and decent work to climate change and public health, industrial livestock operations and meat consumption patterns challenge the achievement of all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in ways that are cross-cutting and interconnected.1 In this study, interdisciplinary data about the world’s leading meat producers provide the empirical backdrop for a content analysis of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Declaration and Goals themselves, SDG Partnerships, Voluntary National Reviews, and other reports are analyzed to discern the degree to which issues associated with industrial meat production, and their interconnectivity, are acknowledged. The results of the content analysis demonstrate that the SDG Framework expresses less concern with the interrelated impacts of industrial meat practices than the actual gravity of those impacts demands. Like other sampled communications, the Agenda also fails to address the unique relationship between decent work and the environment, a critical linkage for successful SDG implementation. Research that explores discrepancies between global problems and the focus of international political attention is necessary for the development of public policies that are coherent and address root-causes of socio-economic inequality and environmental degradation.