By Jayasri Priyalal*
SINGAPORE | 24 October 2026 (IDN) — As the world moves closer to the 2030 deadline for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a troubling reality is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Global wealth continues to expand, financial markets reach record valuations, and technological innovation accelerates at an unprecedented pace. Yet millions of people are falling behind, public services are under strain, and environmental degradation continues unabated. The question confronting policymakers is no longer whether the global economic model is under stress, but whether the metrics guiding that model remain fit for purpose.
For decades, economic success has been measured through indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), shareholder returns and Return on Equity (RoE). While these measurements have provided useful signals for investors and governments, they have often overlooked broader societal outcomes. Human well-being, environmental sustainability, equitable growth, and intergenerational justice rarely appear on traditional balance sheets. As a result, economic systems have rewarded financial extraction even when it undermines long-term development. Financial extraction was linked with the natural resources’ extraction led linear economic activities now contributing to the global warming led to unprecedented natural disasters.
Nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in the developing world (Global South).
Over the past decade and a half, public debt across these economies has risen dramatically. The consequences extend beyond accounting figures. Debt obligations increasingly determine national policy priorities, often forcing governments to devote scarce public resources to debt servicing rather than investments in healthcare, education, climate resilience, and employment creation.
The result is a development paradox. Countries that need significant investments to achieve the SDGs are often transferring more resources to external creditors than they receive through development finance. Public budgets become instruments of repayment rather than vehicles for social progress.
According to the analysis cited in the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) Policy Brief, debt growth has substantially outpaced economic expansion in many developing nations, creating an unsustainable trajectory that threatens long-term prosperity. The implications are profound. Across numerous countries, debt-servicing costs are growing faster than spending on health and education. This creates a dangerous crowding-out effect, where investments in human development are sacrificed to maintain financial obligations. When nations are compelled to choose between servicing debt and funding schools, hospitals, or climate adaptation programmes, the sustainability of the prevailing financial architecture must be questioned.
The challenge extends beyond debt alone.
In recent years, I have argued that the traditional understanding of global development challenges as a “3D Crisis” comprising Deplorable Debt, Degraded Environment, and Depleted Natural Resources is no longer sufficient. A fourth dimension has emerged with enormous implications for economic governance: Data.
The rise of digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and algorithm-driven business models has transformed the global economy. Data has become a strategic asset, often concentrated in the hands of a small number of corporations with unprecedented market power. While these technologies have generated efficiency gains and new opportunities, they have also contributed to widening inequalities, labour market insecurity, and economic concentration.
The deeper problem is that technological progress has significantly outpaced the development of what may be called “social technologies” – the ethical frameworks, governance mechanisms, educational systems, and democratic institutions required to manage technological change in a socially responsible manner.
Humanity has developed increasingly sophisticated physical technologies. We have artificial intelligence systems that process information in milliseconds and financial markets capable of moving trillions of dollars across borders instantly. Yet our institutions have struggled to ensure that these advances contribute to shared prosperity. Without corresponding social technologies, innovation can intensify existing inequalities rather than reduce them. This is precisely why we need a new framework for measuring economic performance.
I propose the mainstreaming of Returns on Ethics (RoE) as a complementary indicator to traditional financial metrics. While Return on Equity evaluates financial profitability, Returns on Ethics asks a different and more fundamental question: what developmental, social, and environmental value is generated by every dollar invested? What is the use of wealth, without fresh air and water to survive ?
Returns on Ethics would evaluate investments through four interconnected dimensions.
First, human capability restoration. Investments should be assessed according to how effectively they improve public health, strengthen education systems, enhance skills development, and support lifelong learning opportunities for workers. Human capital should be viewed not as a cost but as a strategic asset essential for sustainable development.
Second, ecological and planetary integrity. Financial decisions should consider whether they contribute to environmental sustainability, biodiversity protection, carbon reduction, and responsible resource use. Economic growth that depletes natural capital cannot be regarded as genuine progress. It is high time that commercial enterprises focus on investment in the Circular Economy, withdrawing from the unsustainable environmental damaging linear economic activities.
Third, decent work and labour agency. Technological innovation should be measured not only by productivity gains but also by its impact on employment quality, worker participation, data ownership, and social inclusion. Economic transformation must strengthen human agency rather than diminish it.
Fourth, intergenerational justice. Financing arrangements should be evaluated according to their long-term effects on future generations. Policies that lock countries into perpetual cycles of debt dependence and austerity cannot be considered sustainable.
Adopting such an approach would fundamentally change how governments, financial institutions, and investors evaluate success. A project generating attractive short-term returns but causing environmental damage, widening inequality, or weakening public services would score poorly under a Returns on Ethics framework. Conversely, investments in education, public health, green infrastructure, and climate resilience would be recognised as essential contributors to long-term economic value.
Translating this vision into practice requires institutional reform.
International financial institutions should modernise debt sustainability frameworks to incorporate development and resilience indicators alongside traditional debt metrics. Expenditures on health, education, and climate adaptation should be recognised as investments in productive capacity rather than discretionary spending.
Debt-pause mechanisms should become standard features of sovereign lending agreements, enabling countries to respond to economic, health, or climate shocks without sacrificing development priorities. Similarly, debt-for-SDG and debt-for-climate swaps should be expanded to redirect resources toward measurable sustainable development outcomes.
Developing economies should also strengthen regional financial cooperation, local-currency financing arrangements, and South-South partnerships to reduce excessive dependence on external financial centres and create more resilient development pathways.
The challenge before us is not a lack of capital. Global financial resources are abundant. The real challenge is directing those resources toward outcomes that strengthen societies and preserve the planet.
As 2030 approaches, the world faces a clear choice. We can continue measuring success primarily through financial returns while accepting widening inequalities and ecological decline, or we can embrace a broader vision of value creation rooted in human dignity, social justice, and environmental stewardship. Returns on Ethics offers a practical pathway towards that future.
The time has come to place ethics at the centre of finance, not at its margins. Only then can global prosperity become truly sustainable and genuinely inclusive.
*Jayasri Priyalal is a Director, Finance Sector, UNI Global Union Asia-Pacific (UNI Apro), in Singapore.