Transdisciplinary sustainability scientists work with many different actors in pursuit of change. In so doing they make choices about why and how to engage with different perspectives in their research. Reflexivity – active individual and collective critical reflection – is considered an important capacity for researchers to address the resulting ethical and practical challenges. We developed a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach, which helps make any decisions that influence which perspectives are included or excluded in research explicit. We suggest that transdisciplinary sustainability research can become more transformative by nurturing reflexivity.

Transdisciplinary sustainability science is increasingly applied to study transformative change. Yet, transdisciplinary research involves diverse actors who hold contrasting and sometimes conflicting perspectives and worldviews. Reflexivity is cited as a crucial capacity for navigating the resulting challenges, yet notions of reflexivity are often focused on individual researcher reflections that lack explicit links to the collective transdisciplinary research process and predominant modes of inquiry in the field. This gap presents the risk that reflexivity remains on the periphery of sustainability science and becomes ‘unreflexive’, as crucial dimensions are left unacknowledged. Our objective was to establish a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach. We developed and refined the framework through a rapid scoping review of literature on transdisciplinarity, transformation, and reflexivity, and reflection on a scenario study in the Red River Basin (US, Canada). The framework characterizes reflexivity as the capacity to nurture a dynamic, embedded, and collective process of self-scrutiny and mutual learning in service of transformative change, which manifests through interacting boundary processes – boundary delineation, interaction, and transformation. The case study reflection suggests how embedding this framework in research can expose boundary processes that block transformation and nurture more reflexive and transformative research.

Transdisciplinary sustainability research may become more transformative by nurturing reflexivity as a dynamic, embedded, and collective learning process.

We reviewed published research on natural hazards and community disaster resilience to identify how relationships between people and their experiences of disaster interact to shape possibilities for positive transformative change. Research commonly analyzes processes within and across individual and collective or structural spheres of a social system, but rarely investigates interactions across all three. We present a framework focused on ‘spheres of influence’ to address this. The Framework shows how positive relationships that prioritize restoring shared, meaningful and purposeful identities can lead to expansive and incremental capacity for transformative outcomes for sustainability: a process we liken to the butterfly effect.

Sustainability and disaster resilience frameworks commonly neglect the role of agentive social processes in influencing wider structural transformation for sustainability. We applied relational agency and social practice theory to conceptualize transformative pathways for enhanced sustainability through a review of peer-reviewed literature relating to natural hazards and community disaster resilience. We sought to answer two questions: 1. What are the social practices that influence transformative change for disaster resilience in the context of individual, collective and structural spheres of influence? 2. What are the social influencing processes involved, identified through relational agency? We found that empirical studies tend to focus on individual and collective or structural spheres but rarely offer a relational analysis across all three. Our findings highlight that positive relationships that prioritize restoring shared, meaningful and purposeful identities can act as a resource, which can lead to expansive and incremental transformative outcomes for sustainability: a process we liken to the butterfly effect. We present a Sphere of Influence Framework that highlights socialized practices influenced by relationality, which can be applied as a strategic planning tool to increase capacity for resilience. Future research should explore how socio-political practices (the structural sphere) influence distributed power within collective and individual spheres.

Disasters can generate extraordinary social dynamics. So, how can we optimize these dynamics for enhanced sustainability?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Enabling local adoption of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is important to accelerate global efforts to achieve sustainable development. However, local governments have plural perspectives on how to engage with the SDGs. In this paper, we identify three perspectives on how to enable local SDGs based on cases of nine local governments in Australia. We emphasize the need for seeing local SDG adoption as contextualized and actor-driven processes.

Local governments worldwide are taking the initiative to engage with sustainable development goals (SDGs) despite the absence of a globally coordinated guideline on local SDGs actions. With less than a decade until its 2030 deadline, a more targeted and nuanced approach to enabling local SDG actions is needed. In this paper, we argue that there is a need to look at local SDG actions as an actor-driven process where agency, contexts, purpose, and dynamics co-evolve and shape the outcome of the process. Using Q-methodology, we explore different perspectives on what enables local SDGs actions in nine local governments in Australia. Three perspectives in enabling local SDG actions emerged from the study: (1) ‘Enablers should support institutional embeddedness of the SDGs’, (2) ‘Enablers should support stakeholder coordination for the SDGs’, and (3) ‘Enablers should support community engagement for the SDGs’. Each perspective has preferred enablers, contextualized within certain ways of engaging with the SDGs, certain views of the SDGs, and specific local contexts and capacities. This study provides insights to contextualize knowledge in current literature to enable local SDG actions.

Many understand that the local adoption of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is not a one-shoe-fits-all process, but what are some of the plurality in local SDG adoptions? In this paper, we identify three perspectives on enabling the SDGs based on nine local governments in Australia.

To address increasingly pressing social–environmental challenges, the transformative strand of sustainability science seeks to move beyond a descriptive-analytical stance in order to explore and contribute to the implementation of radical alternatives to dominant and unsustainable paradigms, norms, and values. However, in many cases, academia is not currently structured to support and reward inter-/trans-disciplinary and transformative endeavors. This paper introduces a theory of change for the Future Earth Pathways Initiative, and similar initiatives, to help leverage the capacity of sustainability scientists to engage in transformative research.

The increasing body of descriptive-analytical knowledge produced by sustainability science over the last two decades has largely failed to trigger the transformation of policies, norms, and behaviors it was aiming to inform. The emergent transformative strand of sustainability science is a proactive alternative approach seeking to play an active role in processes of societal change by developing knowledge about options, solutions, and pathways, and by participating in their implementation. In principle, scientists can enhance their contribution to more sustainable futures by engaging in transformative research. However, a lack of skills and competencies, relatively unmatured transformative methods and concepts, and an institutional landscape still geared toward disciplinary and descriptive-analytical research, still hinders the sustainability science community from engaging more widely in transformative research. In this paper, the Future Earth Pathways Initiative introduces a theory of change (ToC) for increasing the capacity of sustainability scientists to engage in this type of research. This ToC ultimately aims to build a growing community of practitioners engaged in transformative research, to advance concepts, methods, and paradigms to foster ‘fit-for-purpose transformative research’, and to shape institutions to nurture transformative research-friendly contexts.

What would a theory of change for leveraging the transformative capacity of sustainability science look like?

Engaging with economic questions is crucial for sustainability science to maintain its transformative potential. By recognizing the impact of continuous economic growth on environmental problems, the concept of degrowth proposes a practical approach to achieving sustainability. It urges experts in sustainability to think carefully about the impacts of economic growth, echoing recent scientific findings that question the need for endless growth. Therefore, this article highlights the potential of degrowth as a transformative approach that can expand capacities necessary for socio-ecological sustainability.

This article highlights the potential of degrowth as a transformative approach that can expand capacities necessary for socio-ecological sustainability. By addressing economic growth as a fundamental driver of unsustainability, degrowth offers a concrete pathway toward achieving sustainable outcomes. It calls for sustainability scientists to explicitly consider the role of economic growth, aligning with recent scientific assessments that support a critical stance on growth. Although degrowth and sustainability share common goals such as respecting biocapacity and equitable distribution of ecological budgets, degrowth approaches differ by placing emphasis on national and local solutions and exploring aspects such as technology, time, work, commodity, and property. Engaging with economic questions is crucial for sustainability science to maintain its transformative potential. Growth-critical perspectives such as degrowth and post-growth have the potential to propel sustainability discourses into new, more impactful realms of development.

Engaging with economic questions is crucial for sustainability science to maintain its transformative potential. Degrowth proposes a practical approach for achieving sustainability.

Powerful influences on societal knowledge, values, and behavior, artificial intelligence-infused media systems, new and old, currently reinforce the interlinked problems of inequality and unsustainable consumption. This problem is rarely discussed in environmental research and policy, and even less so how it might be overcome. Discussing this consequential blind spot and the power structures that underpin it, this article argues that sustainability researchers should centrally explore the need and possibilities for democratic reconfiguration of the political economies and charters of media systems to achieve sustainability and other broad, inclusive public goals.

Powerful influences on societal knowledge, values and behavior, artificial intelligence-infused media systems, new and old, currently tend to reinforce the interlinked problems of inequality and unsustainable consumption. This problem is rarely discussed in environmental research and policy, and even less so how it might be overcome. Discussing this consequential blind spot and the power structures that underpin it, this article argues that sustainability researchers should centrally explore the possibilities for democratic governance and reconfiguration of the political economies of media systems to foster human wellbeing and just transformations toward sustainability.

Sustainability transformations require ‘signification steering’ and interventions in media systems' configurations.

The general public became familiar with the term and definition of zoonosis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the pandemic, several responses to mitigate zoonotic risk has been put forward. Often cited are stricter biodiversity conservation and wildlife protection but there are also suggestions to educate people who traditionally consume wildlife for food. This implicit condemnation of culture also manifested explicitly in the form of racism especially against Asians during the height of the pandemic. If the world is to avoid a pandemic, it also needs to work against Orientalism and ensure research is inclusive, equitable, and just.

The COVID-19 pandemic widely introduced the term and definition of zoonosis to the general public. More than just a knee-jerk reaction, stricter biodiversity conservation and wildlife protection are now seen as essential strategies in mitigating zoonotic risks while some researchers have called for education campaigns that should discredit ingrained cultural practices such as wildlife consumption. This implicit condemnation of culture may have been initially confined to research papers but it eventually manifested as explicit racism in everyday life during the height of the pandemic, highlighting the need to decolonize Western scientific views on pandemic prevention and to refrain from Orientalism. This Intelligence Briefing makes the case for the inclusion of history and culture as necessary elements in zoonosis research alongside a critical reflection of transdisciplinary approaches. Emphasizing epistemic humility and authentic interest to learn from other actors such as Indigenous communities on the frontlines of human-wildlife interfaces, this Intelligence Briefing recommends the Future Earth Health Knowledge-Action Network to stay the course toward promoting approaches that are ‘transdisciplinary, multi-scalar, inclusive, equitable, and broadly communicated’ in zoonosis research.

History and culture are necessary elements of zoonosis research alongside transdisciplinary approaches.

Scenarios compatible with the Paris agreement's temperature goal of 1.5 °C involve carbon dioxide removal measures – measures that actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere – on a massive scale. Such large-scale implementations raise significant ethical problems. Van Vuuren et al. (2018), as well as the current IPCC scenarios, show that reduction in energy and or food demand could reduce the need for such activities. There is some reluctance to discuss such societal changes. However, we argue that policy measures enabling societal changes are not necessarily ethically problematic. Therefore, they should be discussed alongside techno-optimistic approaches in any kind of discussions about how to respond to climate change.

The 1.5 °C goal has given impetus to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) measures, such as bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage, or afforestation. However, land-based CDR options compete with food production and biodiversity protection. Van Vuuren et al. (2018) looked at alternative pathways including lifestyle changes, low-population projections, or non-CO2 greenhouse gas mitigation, to reach the 1.5 °C temperature objective. Underlined by the recently published IPCC AR6 WGIII report, they show that demand-side management measures are likely to reduce the need for CDR. Yet, policy measures entailed in these scenarios could be associated with ethical problems themselves. In this paper, we therefore investigate ethical implications of four alternative pathways as proposed by Van Vuuren et al. (2018). We find that emission reduction options such as lifestyle changes and reducing population, which are typically perceived as ethically problematic, might be less so on further inspection. In contrast, options associated with less societal transformation and more techno-optimistic approaches turn out to be in need of further scrutiny. The vast majority of emission reduction options considered are not intrinsically ethically problematic; rather everything rests on the precise implementation. Explicitly addressing ethical considerations when developing, advancing, and using integrated assessment scenarios could reignite debates about previously overlooked topics and thereby support necessary societal discourse.

Policy measures enabling societal changes are not necessarily as ethically problematic as commonly presumed and reduce the need for large-scale CDR.

This article uses water to examine how the relationships of ethics to science are modified through the pursuit of Earth stewardship. Earth stewardship is often defined as the use of science to actively shape social–ecological relations by enhancing resilience. The changing relations of science to values are explored by considering how ideas of resilience operate to translate different ways of knowing water into the framework of Earth stewardship. This is not a neutral process, and Earth stewardship requires careful appraisal to ensure other ways of knowing water are not oppressed.

Scientific disclosures of anthropogenic impacts on the Earth system – the Anthropocene – increasingly come with ethical diagnoses for value transformation and, often, Earth stewardship. This article examines the changing relationship of science to values in calls for Earth stewardship with special attention to water resilience. The article begins by situating recent efforts to reconceptualize human–water relations in view of anthropogenic impacts on the global water system. It then traces some of the ways that Earth stewardship has been articulated, especially as a framework supporting the use of science to actively shape social–ecological relations by enhancing resilience. The shift in relations of ethics and science entailed by Earth stewardship is placed in historical context before the issues of water resilience are examined. Resilience, and critiques of it, are then discussed for how they operate to translate different ways of knowing water into the framework of Earth stewardship. The ethical stakes of such translations are a core concern of the conclusion. Rather than reducing different ways of knowing water to those amendable to the framework of Earth stewardship, the article advances a pluralized approach as needed to respect multiple practices for knowing and relating to water – and resilience.

Water resilience is key to Earth stewardship; Jeremy Schmidt examines how it changes relations of science and ethics.