China formally pledged to peak its carbon emissions within 10 years and achieve carbon neutrality within 30 years thereafter. Considering the numerous challenges and difficulties ahead, it is essential for China to strengthen the building of climate governance systems toward carbon neutrality. This paper examines the interactions between elements of China's climate governance system, and develops a theoretical framework for China's climate governance toward carbon neutrality, with a view to providing more comprehensive information for decision-making.

China's high ambitions to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 make climate governance an urgent issue. Against this background, this paper develops a TAM (‘Target, Actor, Mechanism’) theoretical framework for China's climate governance toward carbon neutrality, intending to provide information for decision-making. This framework, centering on governance actors, is based on two key assumptions: First, the stance of each actor toward a climate action depends on the impact of this action on the actor's objectives and the weight of these objectives to this actor; Second, the most feasible governance mechanism is the solution that can best satisfy actors' objective with the greatest decision-making influence. Applying this framework in case studies involves three major steps: (1) Identifying China's climate governance actions according to transition pathways toward carbon neutrality; (2) Assessing the effects of climate actions on the objective of relevant actors; (3) Obtaining feasible governance mechanisms based on historical institutionalism analysis. By linking different climate governance research methodologies, this theoretical framework can provide decision-makers with more comprehensive information on climate governance.

Integrating quantitative models with institutionalism can bridge the gap between policy formulation and implementation.

Research for development (R4D) projects are designed to enhance the research community's contribution to implementation of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations. We studied seven R4D projects that specifically addressed Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 (life on land) in 14 contexts across Asia, Africa, and South America. We then analyzed how these projects interacted with other SDGs. Our findings reveal that the positive and negative interactions between project objectives and SDG targets vary significantly across contexts, highlighting the importance of considering local conditions when designing and implementing R4D initiatives.

We analyze how the objectives of research for development (R4D) projects that focus on a particular Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – SDG 15 (life on land) – interact with the targets of other SDGs. We studied seven R4D projects in 14 contexts across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, comparing expert judgement of interactions between project objectives and SDG targets. Our findings indicate that the success of these projects depends largely on whether they are also working toward SDG targets other than those contained in SDG 15. In particular, working toward targets contained within SDGs on poverty, hunger, water, energy, production and consumption, and global partnerships – was often considered indivisible from the project objectives. Further, while all of the projects focused on SDG 15, our findings suggest that addressing only this goal is not sufficient. A range of other targets that were a priori not the immediate focus of the projects were revealed as ‘crucial’ to the project objectives across contexts. Finally, we list several implications, such as the need for policies to integrate local realities and the need for environmental R4D projects to adopt a holistic scope, particularly in terms of (a) securing social foundations, (b) building enabling institutions, and (c) negotiating competing claims on land.

What can we learn from land-related research for development projects and their links to the SDGs in concrete contexts?

The Anthropocene era demands urgent societal changes as we exceed planetary limits. Addressing key sustainability and governance challenges requires inter- and transdisciplinary approaches. Future Earth, a global initiative, brings together leading scholars to advance sustainability science by connecting natural and social sciences and humanities with policymaking. This Special Collection emerged from a 2021 call by Future Earth. Featuring 12 manuscripts, it explores themes like cutting-edge sustainability knowledge, interdisciplinary methods, cultural and developmental issues, and strategies for sustainable transformations. This collection offers a forward-looking view on critical research to guide policy and funding for a sustainable world.

The Anthropocene era necessitates urgent societal changes as we surpass planetary boundaries. Addressing the pressing questions of biogeochemical monitoring, feedback mechanisms, and effective governance systems requires interdisciplinary approaches. Future Earth, a global initiative formed by consolidating networks from major research programs, has been pivotal in advancing sustainability science through such approaches. By bridging natural and social sciences and humanities for enhancing the science–policy interface, Future Earth fosters research and innovation essential for global sustainability transformations. This Special Collection, ‘Charting the Course for the Next Decade of Sustainability Research and Innovation,’ arose from a 2021 call by Future Earth. The Special Collection highlights key scientific questions and future research directions. Contributions span themes such as state-of-the-art sustainability knowledge, transdisciplinary methods, cultural and developmental tensions, multi-actor process efficacy, and integrated knowledge for sustainable transformations. With manuscripts sourced from Future Earth's Global Research Networks and other aligned organizations, this issue underscores a forward-looking perspective on critical interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research needed to support high-level policy and funding directions, ultimately aiming to inform societal decisions for a sustainable and equitable world. We conclude that addressing the sustainability crisis requires a diverse and multi-faceted approach that draws upon the best knowledge of humankind.

Explore urgent societal changes and sustainability science with Future Earth's Collection on sustainability research.

Effectively addressing climate change requires new approaches to action, implementation and social change. Urban societies are profoundly shaped by faith, with religion influencing the physical environment, institutional structures and lives of citizens. Consequently, there is a need to consider seriously religion's role in mobilizing or constraining climate action in cities. Research is presented that shows the potential of faith-based organizations and faith perspectives to minimize and adapt to climate impacts. A framework for sensitively engaging faith communities in urban climate policy is developed, based on the power of shared values among diverse stakeholder groups to mobilize climate action through partnerships.

Global environmental research and policy frameworks have begun to emphasize the importance of culture and multi-sector partnerships for urban sustainability governance. However, there has been little explicit attention paid to religion and belief as ubiquitous urban socio-cultural phenomena. This article reviews literature on the intersection of religion and climate change in the context of cities. Religious responses to climate change are presented as a typology spanning physicalities, practices, ‘prophetic’ imagination and policy arenas. Key themes are then intersected with areas of focal activity presented in the most recent IPCC reports. Religion is shown to offer both opportunities and barriers for effective urban climate adaptation and mitigation. A new model of religious-civic partnership is then developed as a framework for guiding urban climate policy implementation. This model presents religion as vital to shaping the ‘value landscape’ of cities and calls for collaborative action based on identifying, enriching and mobilizing shared values. As cities become increasingly more populous, heterogeneous, globally teleconnected and exposed to climate impacts, there is an urgent need for research and policy that effectively engages with the historic and evolving presence and impact of religion within urban environments.

Effective action on climate change in cities requires new modes of engagement with religious perspectives, grounded in shared values.

This commentary argues that the current academic and societal pursuit of ‘solutions’ to sustainability challenges fails to acknowledge how change normally occurs in complex adaptive systems, that is, socio-economic systems and the Earth system, relevant for societal development. Such systems seldom evolve through isolated changes or ‘solutions’ but, rather, through numerous small adjustments of component parts. It is the interactions between these small adjustments that lead to system change. Thus, we argue the need for altered expectations in relation to, and a new narrative describing, the anticipated role of research in the pursuit of a more sustainable societal development trajectory.

The commentary argues for seeking multiple adjustments rather than seeking ‘solutions’ to our current planetary crises. Based on the belief that many of these adjustments may already lie dormant across academic departments, the University of Copenhagen conducted a series of ‘Transformation Labs’ in 2023 with the purpose of identifying the potential socio-economic and technical adjustments that, in combination, may catalyze societal transformation toward sustainability as well as potential barriers for their societal implementation. Here, we reflect on the learnings from the exercise and argue that both current funding practices and university training should be modified to support this altered narrative. In addition, interactions between research institutions and the beyond-academic world should be strengthened.

For reaching a sustainable trajectory, research needs to focus on multiple adjustments rather than fixed solutions.

Loss and damage is treated as comprising separate ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ dimensions in research and policy. While this has contributed to greater awareness and visibility of non-economic values, our empirical insights show that the two are inextricably linked and that research aimed at informing policy must be better attuned to the multifaceted and cascading nature of loss and damage.

In research and policy, climate-related loss and damage is commonly categorized as either ‘economic’ or ‘non-economic’. One clear benefit of this dichotomy is that it has raised people's awareness of the often under-discussed intangible loss and damage. However, empirical research shows that these two categories are inextricably linked. Indeed, ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ loss and damage often overlap, with items that are valued in monetary terms also having non-monetary significance. For example, the loss of a home due to flooding is not only a financial loss but can also have a profound impact on identity and well-being. Moreover, ‘economic’ loss and damage can cascade into ‘non-economic’ loss and damage, and vice versa. For example, when a household incurs economic losses due to drought, this may prevent their children from attending school, which has long-term financial consequences. We argue that rather than dichotomizing loss and damage, recognizing that it is multidimensional, interwoven, and evolving over time will open up new avenues for research that better reflect reality and can therefore better inform policies to address loss and damage.

This comment shows how economic and non-economic loss and damage are linked, which has important policy implications.

Growth in resource consumption and associated environmental degradation threatens food systems, with millions of people living in hunger globally, demonstrating the need for greater socio-ecological efficiency in food provisioning. This paper considers how sustainable consumption can ensure that human needs with regards to food provisioning (food security) are met within globally sustainable limits. It follows a sectoral approach to sustainable consumption corridors (SCCs), to develop an indicator framework for a food provisioning systems SCC.

Bridging social and ecological evaluations of sustainability in food systems has proved to be a challenge, illustrating the need for indicator sets which link environmental impacts and social achievement within a single framework. This work aims to fill that research gap by considering how the sustainable consumption corridor (SCC) framework can be used to examine the socio-ecological efficiency of food provisioning systems and developing a comprehensive SCC framework for food provisioning. The framework uses domains to define the minimum level of consumption needed to meet human needs (social foundation [SF]) and the maximum level of environmental impact the earth system can tolerate (ecological ceiling [EC]) while sustainably meeting those needs. It does so through the production of an indicator set for food provisioning systems that gives indicators and thresholds for the EC and SF domains within a single framework. This output is followed by a discussion of how this global SCC framework could be altered for use in different contexts, and suggestions for how such a framework could inform consumption linked sustainability policy.

This work puts forth a sustainable consumption corridor framework to evaluate if food provisioning systems are meeting human needs within sustainable limits.

Healthcare systems significantly impact the environment, which in turn affects human health. To address this, we propose to revise a popular framework for healthcare improvement, by introducing the advancement of planetary health (the health of both humans and the natural systems) among the aims that health systems should pursue. This approach suggests reducing medical service needs through disease prevention, minimizing environmental impacts, and supporting global efforts to protect planetary health. Practical applications to bring about these pathways are documented in the literature.

Restoring the health of the planet, with concurrent benefits for human civilization, is paramount. Healthcare systems play a crucial role in this regard, considering the environmental impact of health services. Widely recognized approaches to designing healthcare systems for the optimization of their performance are based on the pursuit of multiple aims, such as the Triple Aim and Quadruple Aim frameworks. The objective of this work is to revise the latter by substituting ‘Advance Planetary Health’ for ‘Improve Population Health’.

The objective of advancing planetary health supports all other pre-existing objectives: lowering costs, enhancing patient experience, team wellbeing, and population health, which directly relates to planetary health. Health systems promoting planetary health reduce the need for medical services through disease prevention and health promotion, pursue the provision of appropriate care, minimize the overall environmental impact of medical services, and support planetary health initiatives across all sectors and society. Multiple interconnected pathways exist to operationalize the above components.

A revised quadruple aim for healthcare improvement, aligned with social and economic goals of sustainable prosperity and wellbeing, may be a desirable step toward constructing planetary health systems capable of maximizing the health of humans and natural systems.

It's time for new ‘planetary health systems’: focusing on planetary health to enhance healthcare performance. #PlanetaryHealth #ClimateCrisis #HealthcareImprovement.

In transdisciplinary sustainability, scientists take responsibility for the long-term impact they have on practitioners in the research field and beyond. However, the duration of a career and amounts of funding are finite. One way out is to perform a responsible exit from the field. This study extracts lessons to realizing researchers’ responsible exit from their field through detailed description of the experiences of two researchers and a practitioner in collaboration in transdisciplinary research, weaving together the perspectives of all parties. The following lessons were extracted: (1) Imagining the extent of mutual understanding, (2) Production of knowledge entrusted to practitioners, and (3) Researchers’ acceptance of being unneeded. This study does not claim that these approaches are universally effective. We suggest that the reader transfer this case study and its approaches to his or her own case to seek better relationships. The validity of this qualitative study's suggestions should be tested by readers.

In the discipline of transdisciplinary sustainability, researchers must responsibly manage their impact on their partner practitioners. Balancing this with limited career durations and limited research funds is challenging. One potential solution involves responsibly exiting from the research field. This study investigates the experience of two researchers and a practitioner in collaborative transdisciplinary research. The lessons include acknowledging researchers’ amateurism, anticipating the challenges in achieving mutual understanding, and embracing researchers’ acceptance of feeling unneeded. The universality of these principles should be investigated in the future research. This research encourages readers to apply these principles to their own cases to develop better relationship between researchers and practitioners that leave no seeds of misfortune.

In transdisciplinary sustainability, scientists take responsibility for the long-term impact they have on practitioners in the research field and broader communities. However, the duration of a career as a scientist and amounts of funding are finite. One way out is to responsibly exit from the field. This study extracts lessons to realizing researchers’ responsible exit from their field by providing a detailed account of the collaborative experiences of two researchers and a practitioner engaged in transdisciplinary research, weaving together the perspectives of all parties. The following lessons were extracted: acknowledging researchers’ amateurism, anticipating the challenges in achieving mutual understanding, and embracing researchers’ acceptance of feeling unneeded. This study does not claim that these principles are universally effective. We suggest that the reader transfer this case study and its approaches to his or her own case to seek better relationships.

In transdisciplinary sustainability, researchers must responsibly manage their impact on their research partner practitioners. Balancing this with limited career durations and funds is challenging. Researchers’ responsible exit from the research field is a possible solution. This research derives insight from researchers’ and a practitioner's experiences in collaborative transdisciplinary research. Lessons include acknowledging researchers’ amateurism, anticipating the challenges in achieving mutual understanding, and embracing researchers’ acceptance of feeling unneeded. However, these approaches might not be universal. Readers are encouraged to apply these lessons to their own case for better relationship building.

This study explores how corporate social responsibility and risk management intersect in the fashion industry, aiming to promote sustainability. It emphasizes the importance of integrating responsible practices into business strategies to mitigate risks and enhance long-term profitability. By focusing on a multinational fashion supply chain, the study examines real-world examples to highlight the challenges and opportunities in balancing brand image with ethical supply chain management. The findings provide insights into how companies can safeguard their reputation, manage complex supply chains, and contribute positively to sustainability goals in the fashion sector.

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and risk management within the fashion industry. It conducts an in-depth case study of a prominent multinational fashion supply chain, analyzing 11 suppliers through interviews, observations, and internal documents. The study underscores that integrating CSR principles into risk management strategies helps mitigate supply chain risks and capitalize on business opportunities. It addresses gaps in existing literature by presenting empirical evidence of CSR-driven transformations in the sector, rather than merely documenting unsustainable practices. The study contributes by offering practical insights for fashion businesses aiming to achieve long-term success through sustainable practices. Key implications include the necessity for strategic integration of CSR into operational frameworks to protect corporate image, manage risks effectively, and foster sustainable growth in the competitive fashion marketplace.

From risk management to sustainable success: how corporate social responsibility shapes the future of fashion.

Systemic risks such as climate change and pandemics are complex and interconnected. Managing such risks requires effective organisational structures and processes. This publication presents conceptually robust, evidence-based approaches for assessing and managing systemic risks.

Systemic risks originate and evolve in the nexus of tightly coupled dynamic systems, which are a characteristic of modern societies in the Anthropocene. Systemic risk implies the breakdown of a system which provides essential functions to society. Connectivity between systems is a key enabler for systemic risk to manifest through cascading effects. Thus, systemic risks originate and evolve in the nexus of tightly coupled dynamic systems. Cascading effects and the convergence of systemic risks with conventional risks as well as other systemic risks challenge the established modes of risk governance that still rest to a large extent on differentiation and compartmentalisation. Thus, governance of systemic risks requires an integrative approach towards risk governance that combines interdisciplinary risk analysis with iterative, adaptive and inclusive governance procedures. By drawing on the case studies of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, this paper proposes an innovative risk governance framework for systemic risks based on the integration of systems analysis and a governance procedure with the salient features of reflection, iteration, inclusion, transparency and accountability.

Systemic risks highlight the interconnected nature of our contemporary societies which calls for tailored responses.

Rapid population growth in urban areas requires an effective transposition of sustainable development goals to the urban realm, for which the New Urban Agenda was adopted by most countries worldwide. The progress report of its implementation was discussed in this study to identify strengths and weaknesses in the process that assist nations in the design and application of effective actions to achieve a more sustainable urban development.

The adoption of the 2030 Agenda represents a daunting challenge for countries worldwide, which found its continuation in the New Urban Agenda (NUA) geared predominantly toward urban settlements. Although the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has been widely monitored by global and national institutions, the progress of the NUA has not been properly addressed to date. With the purpose of filling this gap, this study aims to gauge the implementation level of the NUA through the analysis of all status reports issued hitherto by countries, on the basis of the reporting template designed to this effect by the United Nations. Findings revealed the scarce attention paid to report national progress on the application of the NUA, particularly marked in the most developed economies. Reporting guidelines showed a poor coverage of the SDGs, being mostly focused on a limited number of these as well as the institutional and economic dimensions. The low level of NUA implementation and the questionable effectiveness of the reporting framework for monitoring are main conclusions. Some recommendations were lastly suggested to enhance the application process of the NUA.

Most countries worldwide show little interest in the application of the New Urban Agenda.

This article examines the challenges and opportunities to integrate diverse sources of evidence in assessments produced by international platforms working at the science–policy interface. Diversity (or pluralism) of sources of literature, both in terms of their geographic origin and disciplinary focus, is essential for assessments to inform decision-making across social–ecological contexts. Using the recently completed ‘Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature’ of the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services as a case, we find that significant effort has been dedicated to reviewing diverse literature. We discuss three strategies to expand pluralism in future assessments.

Representing plural views in science–policy platforms is essential to avoid reproducing geographic and epistemic biases that permeate contemporary scientific knowledge production and synthesis. The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has strived to produce assessments that incorporate information from diverse regions and knowledge systems. We explore the geographic and epistemic pluralism of the literature included in the ‘Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature’ (VA), and the challenges and opportunities to achieve such knowledge pluralism. We applied a bibliometric analysis to the sources of evidence cited in the VA, and reflected on the assessment development process, in which we were directly involved. Our results highlight the success of different strategies developed by VA experts to engage with diverse sources of literature. Still, most evidence was English-language academic literature produced in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, echoing the prominence of this literature in scientific publication in environmental disciplines. Reflecting on our experiences, we discuss strategies that could further enhance the geographic and epistemic pluralism in the information reviewed for future environmental assessments produced by IPBES and other international science–policy platforms.

Epistemic and geographic pluralism was partially achieved in IPBES Values Assessment, and can be further enhanced in future assessments.

Agriculture has been dominated by annual plants, such as all cereals and oilseeds, since the very beginning of civilization over 10,000 years ago. Annual plants are planted and uprooted every year which results in severe disturbance of the soil and disrupts ecosystem services. Science has shown that it is possible to domesticate completely new perennial grain crops, i.e. planted once and harvested year after year. Such crops would solve many of the problems of agriculture, but their development and uptake would be at odds with the current agricultural technology industry.

Agriculture is arguably the most environmentally destructive innovation in human history. A root cause is the reliance on annual crops requiring uprooting and restarting every season. Most environmental predicaments of agriculture can be attributed to the use of annuals, as well as many social, political, and economic ones. Advances in domestication and breeding of novel perennial grain crops have demonstrated the possibility of a future agricultural shift from annual to perennial crops. Such a change could have many advantages over the current agricultural systems which are to over 80% based on annual crops mainly grown in monocultures. We analyze and review the prospects for such scientific advances to be adopted and scaled to a level where it is pertinent to talk about a perennial revolution. We follow the logic of E.O. Wright's approach of Envisioning Real Utopias by discussing the desirability, viability, and achievability of such a transition. Proceeding from Lakatos' theory of science and Lukes' three dimensions of power, we discuss the obstacles to such a transition. We apply a transition theory lens to formulate four reasons of optimism that a perennial revolution could be imminent within 3–5 decades and conclude with an invitation for research.

There is abundant research about the impacts that large-scale mining produces on territories to the detriment of their social and environmental sustainability. However, during our research in Chile and Peru, we also identified local transformative initiatives that pursue sustainable development by proposing alternatives to how the socio-ecological impacts of natural resource extraction are produced and distributed throughout society. Specifically, we ask the question: How do local communities in Chile and Peru that are affected by mining activities engage in community-based environmental monitoring (CBEM)?

By examining how local communities in Chile and Peru engage in community environmental monitoring, this paper argues that local political organisation and institutional innovations are crucial for the emergence of transformations towards sustainability. Local political organisation and mobilisation can create a window of opportunity for discussion about extractive activities and their impacts, as well as possible proposals for alternatives. Institutional innovations triggered by local political work can lead to the implementation of such initiatives. Our findings are based on qualitative case studies of CBEM in Chile and Peru, in areas with high levels of environmental degradation due to mining. In Chile we analysed a case of community air monitoring in a copper processing area, and in Peru a case of community water monitoring in a mining area. Drawing on debates on social transformation and political ecology theory, this study aims to show CBEM promotes changes towards a more democratic and preventive environmental governance, and encourages the recognition of environmental injustices.

This paper analyses how local communities in Chile and Peru engage in community environmental monitoring in areas affected by the presence of extractive industries. We identified local transformative initiatives that pursue sustainable development by proposing alternatives to how the socio-environmental impacts of natural resource extraction are produced and distributed in society. Our findings are based on qualitative case studies of community-based air and water monitoring in extractive areas in Chile and Peru.

Neoclassical economics (NCE) theory and neoliberal economics practice together form one of the principal driving forces of environmental destruction and social injustice. We critically examine ten key hypotheses that form the foundations of NCE, and four other claims. Each fails to satisfy one or more of the basic requirements of scientific practice. Hence, NCE is fundamentally flawed, is irrational in the common meaning of the word, and should not be used as a guide for government policies. Because NCE is socially constructed, it can be replaced with an interdisciplinary conceptual framework that is compatible with ecological sustainability and social justice.

Neoclassical economics (NCE) is widely regarded as providing theoretical justification for neoliberal notions such as ‘governments should minimize regulation and spending, and hence leave major socioeconomic and environmental decisions to the market’. A large body of literature finds that NCE is largely responsible for environmental destruction and social inequality. As NCE is claimed to be a science and has appropriated terminology (without the content) from physics, we examine critically its basic hypotheses and four other claims from a viewpoint of natural scientists and an ecological economist, each a sustainability researcher. This paper defines NCE in two ways: as a theoretical structure for economics based on (1) the hypotheses of methodological individualism, methodological instrumentalism and methodological equilibration, and (2) the three hypotheses named above together with seven other common hypotheses of NCE. We find that each hypothesis and claim fails to satisfy one or more basic requirements of scientific practice such as empirical confirmation, underlying credible or empirical assumptions, consistency with Earth system science, and internal consistency. Sensitivity analysis is rare and ability to predict is lacking. Therefore, we recommend that neoclassical microeconomics be reformed and neoclassical macroeconomics be abandoned and replaced with a transdisciplinary field such as social ecological economics.

Conventional economics, a driver of environmental damage and social inequality, fails examination by sustainability scientists.

With unabating climate extremes, evidence of waning biosphere buffering capacity, and surging ocean surface temperature, Earth system analysts are posing the question: is global environmental change accelerating, driven by the depletion of our planet's resilience? No scientist contributed more actively to addressing this question and thus defining sustainable development in the Anthropocene than the late Professor Will Steffen. His contributions to Earth system and global sustainability research gave birth to concepts such as the Planetary Boundaries, Hothouse Earth, Planetary Commons, and World-Earth resilience, and have become guideposts for how Earth system science can inform humanity's Earth stewardship in the Anthropocene.

Mounting evidence of accelerating global environmental change is driving scientists to question whether we are witnessing a breakdown in the resilience of our planet. Three lines of scientific enquiry have been important when studying the stability and resilience of the planet: the empirical evidence of the great acceleration of the human enterprise from the 1950s onwards resulting in planetary-scale pressures; the understanding that Earth is a complex biosphere-geosphere system with self-regulating interactions and feedbacks contributing to control its equilibrium state; and the emerging insight into the unique stability of the Holocene Epoch, the last 10,000 years of inter-glacial equilibrium, and its critical role in providing predictable (and for humanity agreeable) life conditions for the evolution of modern civilizations. Professor Will Steffen played a pivotal role in integrating and advancing these three Earth system research avenues and combining them into one integrated people-planet framework Earth system. State-of-the-art research on fully coupled Earth system models (ESMs) that also integrate non-linear dynamics and tipping-point behavior, and even human dynamics, is built in part on Will Steffen's pioneering work to observe and describe the Earth in the Anthropocene.

Prof. Will Steffen's legacy and how Earth system science can inform humanity's Earth stewardship in the Anthropocene

Given increasing global political, security and economic challenges, politicians in the European Union (EU) are seeking to reduce the EU's dependence on imports, including feed for farmed livestock. While insect farming has been suggested as an advantageous source of livestock feed is the insect farming industry, the sector has not met optimistic expectations. In particular, labor and electricity costs are driving insect companies offshore, including to Asia and the United States. This paper explores ways that the EU could solve this problem, the most promising of which is to expand the EU's production of maize and soy.

In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and increasing global destabilization, policy makers within the European Union have expressed the need to reduce the bloc's dependence on imported agricultural products such as livestock feed. One industry that has been promoted as an advantageous source of livestock feed is insect agriculture. However, the insect industry's growth has not kept pace with optimistic expectations, and high labor and electricity costs in Europe appear to be driving major insect companies to expand production offshore. One solution may involve supporting the automation of insect farming, though automation may have harmful social consequences by reducing employment and exacerbating inequality. A more promising solution could involve bringing additional land under cultivation to expand domestic production of maize and soy, and the most up-to-date estimates suggest that doing so may even offer environmental benefits over insect production.

Insect farming has been offered as a solution to EU food security, but labor and power costs complicate the picture.

Brazil – one of the world's largest biocultural diversities – faces high rates of habitat loss, social inequality, and land conflicts impacting indigenous and local peoples. To challenge that, Brazilian sustainability science and education needs to be strengthened. We searched for elements in ongoing bottom-up sustainability social movements that can help serve that purpose. We found values, contents, and attitudes that, if incorporated into Brazilian sustainability science and education, can assist its transformative potential by reflecting local voices and critically engaging with (often-hegemonic) northern concepts.

In Brazil, a strong sustainability science and education is required to confront ‘glocal’ issues such as zoonotic pandemics and climate change, which are worsened by rampant ecosystem loss and social vulnerability. However, a largely disciplinary university system has been slow to meet these urgent needs. To address if and how dialogical processes with non-academics can prompt integration between distinct types of knowledge, we analyze four bottom-up sustainability initiatives that promote dialogues between science, the arts, religion, youth, and indigenous and local knowledge, and reflect on lessons learnt with movement organizers, scientists, and educators – the authors of this paper. Although sustainability science produced in dialogue with other forms of knowledge is still emerging in Brazil, we find that bottom-up initiatives outside academia can inspire science and education to approach sustainability as wholeness – a state of balance to be fulfilled when reached individually, collectively, and cosmically. We discuss how to approach a transdisciplinary and reflexive attitude in Brazilian sustainability science and education, and highlight its unique contribution to frontier topics in global sustainability debates.

Social movements’ values, contents, and attitudes can inspire transformative Brazilian sustainability science and education.

Tourism significantly boosts a nation's economic growth, but unrestrained practices can cause serious environmental damage. As an essential part of the tourism industry, hotels meet the fundamental needs of tourists. This study examines the sustainable environmental management practices of hotels in Malaysia. It finds that hotels prioritize cost-saving and short-term benefits over long-term environmental gains. The study also reveals variations in sustainable practices based on hotel location and star rating. These insights are useful for various stakeholders in developing strategies and initiatives to achieve sustainable development goals.

Sustainable environmental management practices (SEMP) are essential to pave the way toward achieving a net-zero emission sustainable future. This study explores the level of SEMP among hotels in Malaysia based on distinct categorizations of location and star ranking. The findings show that hotels in Malaysia adopt higher basic SEMPs but less advanced practices. However, the level of basic and advanced SEMPs in hotels differ according to their geographical locations and star ranking. The findings also suggest that hotels in Malaysia prioritize cost-saving practices and short-term benefits over the long-term benefits of sustainable practices. The study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the variations in the sustainable practices among different categories of hotels. Further, the findings are helpful for practitioners and policymakers in designing tools and measures, and promoting initiatives that best suit different types of hotels. Such efforts are crucial to promote and accelerate the engagement of sustainability practices in hotels.