Modeling normativity in sustainability: a comparison of the sustainable development goals, the Paris agreement, and the papal encyclical

Normativity defines a significant research field within sustainability science, where scientific knowledge and normative orientations are intrinsically linked. Yet it remains unclear how to understand, or even model, normativity in a way analogous to modeling knowledge about complex biosocial or earth systems. This paper analyzes how norms are structured and organized in three influential 2015 documents: the Pope’s Encyclical Laudato Si’, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement (PA). Norms in sustainability discourses are both ethical and techno-scientific and relate to actors and entities at different scales—from global and national institutions to local communities and individuals. The norms governing these documents define broad social, political, and scientific directions and interventions for sustainability. By focusing on norms in relation to global development, research programs, national policies, and individual conduct, the authors build a meta-structure of norms that conceptualizes expected performance and impact of these texts. Including Laudato Si’ is justified by its contribution to sustainability discourse beyond religious doctrine, with emphasis on ethical dimensions. The goal is to clarify normative orientations connecting ethical, socio-political, and scientific dimensions, thereby informing how these documents may perform and impact sustainable development. The paper proceeds with an overview of the texts, an analytical approach for capturing embedded norms, results of the analysis, a discussion in relation to sustainability models, and a conclusion arguing for models that incorporate a critical conception of normativity.

The authors use the three documents as entry points to analyze the complex system of normativity in sustainability discourse. They systematically identify the main entities and actors guided by norms at three levels: (1) macro-level (e.g., global institutions such as the UN, transnational organizations, the Catholic Church; universal ethical ideals such as humanity and Mother Earth; and techno-scientific norms like globally valid indicators), (2) meso-level (nations and societies; norms like accountability, cohesion, national ownership), and (3) micro-level (subnational organizations, communities, and individuals; norms such as moral responsibility). The analysis focuses on both intra-level and inter-level relations, with emphasis on inter-level dynamics and their temporal qualities. Temporal processes are classified as acceleration (e.g., accelerating techno-scientific innovation for mitigation/adaptation) and deceleration (e.g., slowing product obsolescence and consumerism). This temporal classification, standard in complex systems analysis, helps operationalize the conceptual model. The approach resonates with social-ecological systems (SES) models, invoking the concept of near-decomposability (systems composed of interacting but semi-autonomous subsystems). The authors model a quasi near-decomposable architecture relating macro, meso, and micro entities and norms, and assess how top-down (macro to meso) and bottom-up (micro to meso) processes, with different temporal speeds, shape normative orientations. They identify the meso-level as the normative core and focus of action and interventions.

• The three documents share universal macro-level framing but differ in how ethical and techno-scientific norms interconnect across levels.
• Macro-level: All three adopt universalistic ethical appeals (e.g., humanity, planet). The PA connects ethical norms (ecosystem integrity, climate justice) with techno-scientific norms (quantified global average temperature limits, transparency, and a global stocktake). The SDGs similarly emphasize a participatory, transparent follow-up and a global indicator framework. The Encyclical foregrounds superordinate ethical norms (e.g., love, justice) that critique an alleged techno-economic paradigm, counterbalancing the PA/SDGs’ technocratic emphasis.
• Meso-level: The PA and SDGs place nation-states at the normative focal system (e.g., nationally determined contributions; respect for national policy; national ownership; consistency with international law). The Encyclical centers society and culture, promoting solidarity and envisioning society imposing regulatory norms on governments, thus emphasizing cultural change and social pressure over state-centric mechanisms.
• Micro-level: UN documents assign roles to non-state actors (“non-Party stakeholders,” civil society, private sector, cities, indigenous peoples) with an emphasis on education and information access. The Encyclical explicitly addresses individuals, focusing on ethical responsibility and ecological conversion. This yields a polarity: UN texts prioritize meso-level national institutions and techno-scientific accountability, while the Encyclical foregrounds micro-level individual ethics.
• Education and information: PA and SDGs emphasize climate education, public awareness, and information dissemination; SDGs mention sustainable lifestyles by 2030. The Encyclical stresses attention to local cultures, dialogue between scientific-technical and vernacular perspectives, and individual “desire to change,” complementing scientific information with ethical transformation.
• Dynamics of change: Top-down acceleration and centralization characterize UN documents, implementing transparency and indicator frameworks to mobilize and scale up meso-level actions, creating infrastructures of technological and financial facilities and accountability systems. There is a risk of reducing ethical accountability to numerical accounting. A nuance acknowledges long-term processes (PA’s long-term response; Encyclical’s long-term common good), implying the need to slow certain changes.
• Bottom-up deceleration and decentralization: The Encyclical posits a direct link from universal ethical norms to individual responsibility, fostering micro-level moral awareness and lifestyle change that aggregates to meso-level social cohesion. This counters accelerative top-down control by advocating reduced pace in production and consumption and non-consumerist models of life.
• Complementarity and symmetry: Notable micro-level normative symmetry exists between SDGs (empowerment) and the Encyclical (responsibility), whereas the PA is less focused on personal dimensions. Overall, documents are complementary: UN texts regulate national contributions; the Encyclical amplifies individual ethical agency.
• Proposed model: A heterarchic topology where meso-level change results from simultaneous macro-level techno-scientific acceleration and micro-level socio-ethical deceleration. This inverts common SES/socio-technical assumptions about fast variables at lower levels and slow variables at higher levels.
• Transferability: The heterarchic model, informed by including Laudato Si’, can be applied to other sustainability contexts and to analyze growing direct interactions between international bureaucracies and non-state actors.

The authors argue that the normative structure emerging from the three documents is better represented by a heterarchy rather than a standard near-decomposable hierarchy. In this heterarchic topology, relations are mediated across levels with cross-scale feedbacks: macro-level techno-scientific processes induce acceleration at the meso-level, while micro-level ethical processes induce deceleration, jointly shaping national and societal transformations. This configuration reverses assumptions in prominent SES and socio-technical transition models that typically associate fast variables with lower levels (niches) and slow variables with higher levels (landscapes/regimes). The heterarchic perspective is complementary to existing models and can enrich understanding of sustainability transitions by explicitly incorporating the temporal diversity of normative processes. The approach is potentially transferable to governance contexts where international institutions increasingly interact directly with non-state actors, and it can inform the design of cross-level dialogues about values, goals, and actions. It also relates to the leverage points discourse, suggesting that differing temporalities of norms may map onto shallow versus deep leverage points in systems transformations.

Socio-political norms—ethical and techno-scientific—are central to sustainability discourses. By comparatively analyzing Laudato Si’, the SDGs, and the Paris Agreement, the authors model normativity across macro, meso, and micro levels and propose a heterarchic dynamic: macro-level techno-scientific acceleration and micro-level ethical deceleration jointly orient meso-level national and societal change. This model clarifies how the documents frame future sustainability pathways and can help organize normative features in scientific and non-scientific discourses. Because the approach resonates with SES and complexity-informed frameworks, it offers a perspective that can be applied and refined to revisit empirical cases with explicit attention to the temporal dynamics of norms. Advancing a critical, transparent integration of normativity may better align knowledge and action for transformative change while avoiding premature panaceas. Future research should refine the model’s analytical resonance with existing frameworks, explore mappings to leverage points, and empirically examine how differing temporalities of norms affect sustainability outcomes.

• Impact assessment is premature: The authors note it is too early to fully evaluate the actual effects of the three 2015 documents on sustainable development, as this requires retrospective analysis.
• Model dependence on corpus: The heterarchic topology and identified temporal dynamics depend on including Laudato Si’ alongside the UN documents; different corpora might yield different structures.
• Conceptual and interpretive scope: The study is a comparative discourse analysis of texts rather than an empirical evaluation of implementation or outcomes; it infers normative structures and dynamics without testing causality.
• Granularity constraints: Mapping complex, multi-actor normative systems into three levels (macro/meso/micro) simplifies real-world heterogeneity and may overlook additional relevant scales or hybrid institutions.
• Generalizability and operationalization: While the model is argued to be transferable, applying it across varied contexts will require further operationalization and empirical validation, particularly regarding the measurement of acceleration/deceleration processes and their interactions.