Integrating Sustainable Development Goals into the Belt and Road Initiative: Would It Be a New Model for Green and Sustainable Investment?

Given the challenges presented by climate change and related environmental pressure, a sustainable, investment-led development model, i.e., aligning investment with social and sustainability objectives, is needed to ensure long-term prosperity and generate sustainable growth. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was released to guide nations towards green and sustainable development and address governance deficits. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by China, a development strategy involving investment in infrastructure development, intends to enhance regional connectivity, integration, and stimulate economic growth. These two agendas share the notion of ‘sustainable development’ and are growing increasingly relevant. Although various studies have analysed the sustainability of the BRI, the implementation of SDGs and the similarities and complementarities between the two initiatives, few of them touched on the possibility of the BRI to be a green and sustainable investment-led model by aligning the SDGs. This paper, thus, aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on sustainable development and infrastructure investment by exploring the possibilities and challenges of the BRI to be a sustainable, investment-led development model. By comparing these two agendas and seeking the linkages between them, this article recognises the potential of the BRI to play such a role while there are issues and risks of BRI that hinder the achievement of infrastructure development and sustainable investment. The paper recommends that, to exert the synergies from aligning the BRI and SDGs to seize substantial development benefits, it is necessary to enhance the sustainability of BRI projects, provide effective cooperation and communication with stakeholders, and adapt BRI to the national development policies of each partner country. Joint efforts taken by both state and non-state actors are indispensable.