During a university class project related to climate change mitigation strategies, we utilized a university green space as a “living laboratory” for collaborative learning exercise to estimate landscape-level carbon biomass storage. The key objective of the exercise was to foster sustainability awareness with regard to the effectiveness of tree-planting initiatives to offset carbon emissions. Collaborative

Representative studies report high levels of acceptance of environmental protection and approval for stricter political measures to ensure a liveable future. However, in the last years, climate-damaging emissions did not decrease in accordance with the Paris Agreement, and important societal actors failed to implement effective strategies that could promote a socio-ecological transformation. Sufficiency

This paper uses a systems approach to model the coherence and linkages between peace and sustainability. These two interconnected dynamic states emerge from the interaction of multiple systems and subsystems and unfold in a landscape of specific context and scale. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all unified and optimized static state of peace, the same way as there are no individual united

Nature conservation on privately owned land depends on land managers’ decision-making. Interactions between values, rules and knowledge (vrk) underpin decision-making, thus, it is important to understand these interactions to support conservation intentions. We investigated how different sets of vrk determine the decision-making context regarding the management and conservation of renosterveld, a critically

Recently, natural capital has gained the attention of researchers and policymakers to promote sustainability. Previous studies have investigated the value of ecosystem services with respect to specific areas or species. Other studies have investigated the value of various types of ecosystem services and natural capital by integrating a number of findings using meta-analyses at the global level. Although

The shift from traditional diets to a diet characterised by higher consumption of sugars, fats, processed foods and animal-source foods is often termed the nutrition transition. Although research has focused on the health outcomes of this transition, there is an increasing interest in environmental impacts. Here we investigated the potential changes in impacts driven by the nutrition transition in

The sustainability of complex resource systems, such as the food, water, and energy (FWE) nexus, is increasingly threatened by climate change impacts, expanding populations, urbanization, and economic instability. However, while research on the topic has burgeoned, studies focused on solution development and implementation, especially at the urban level, have lagged behind. Against this background

The COVID-19 pandemic before mass vaccination can be restrained only by the limitation of contacts between people, which makes the digital economy a key condition for survival. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and many cities have already transformed into “smart” digital/virtual hubs. Digital services ensure city life safe without an economy lockout and unemployment. Urban

Access to resources that is equitable and sustainable provides a critical foundation for community harmony and development. Both natural and human-induced disasters present major risks to sustainable development trajectories and require strategic management within regional and local plans. Climate change and its impacts, including intensified storms, flash floods, and other water-based disasters (WD)

The transdisciplinary research mode has gained prominence in the research on and for sustainability transformations. Yet, solution-oriented research addressing complex sustainability problems has become complex itself, with new transdisciplinary research formats being developed and tested for this purpose. Application of new formats offers learning potentials from experience. To this end, we accompanied

Nutrient runoff from catchments that drain into the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a significant source of stress for this World Heritage Area. An alliance of collaborative on-ground water quality monitoring (Project 25) and technologically driven digital application development (Digiscape GBR) projects were formulated to provide data that highlighted the contribution of a network of Australian sugar

Relational values have been gaining increasing attention in recent years, overcoming the dichotomy of intrinsic and instrumental values, and allowing more pluralistic perspectives in evaluating nature and nature’s contributions to people. Although various theoretical and qualitative studies on relational values have been published, studies based on empirical evidence are limited. Building on the conceptual

The original article can be found online.

In the original publication of the article, under the acknowledgments section, the project number was published incorrectly.

The original article has been updated.

Given current limitations of global and national governance arrangements in redirecting economic globalisation towards a climate-safe and sustainable world, it is crucial to understand how organisations that aim to tackle social and environmental problems using market mechanisms can contribute to fostering sustainability transformations. This review identified 60 different terms or concepts for hybrid

The notion of a water–energy–food (WEF) nexus was introduced to encourage a more holistic perspective on the sustainable development of natural resources. Most attention has been directed at identifying potential synergies and trade-offs among sectors that could be addressed with improved technologies and management. The governance of the WEF nexus more broadly has received comparatively little attention

In the original publication of the article, under the introduction section.

Sustainability transformations research increasingly recognizes the importance of local actors and their networks to foster fundamental societal change. Local actors have different types of relations between each other (e.g., sharing material resources, giving advice) through which they jointly intervene in different system characteristics. We conducted social network analyses of 32 non-governmental

In the original publication of the article, under the section.

This paper investigates the Yellow Vests movement and the extent it constitutes an original platform for resistance to a sustainability transition agenda in the French context. The movement represents a disruption to global climate mitigation solutions that are often formalized at a global scale, and illustrates cultural and economic constraints in providing social justice in the age of climate change

The crisis caused by COVID-19 has affected research in a variety of ways. As far as research on sustainable development is concerned, the lockdown has significantly disrupted the usual communication channels and, among other things, has led to the cancellation of meetings and long-planned events. It has also led to delay in the delivery of research projects. There is a gap in the literature in regards

Climate change and coronavirus pandemic are the twin crises in the Anthropocene, the era in which unsustainable growth of human activities has led to a significant change in the global environment. The two crises have also exposed a chronic social illness of our time—a deep, widespread inequality in society. Whilst the circumstances are unfortunate, the pandemic can provide an opportunity for sustainability

In the original publication of the article, under the introduction section the following sentence “This avalanche of

The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how the impacts of climate change are beginning to converge with other developing challenges with a likely peak with global population, requiring more integrated responses locally, regionally and globally.

In the original publication of the article, last three columns of Tables 6 and 7 were published incorrectly. The correct version of Tables 6 and 7 are provided below.

The topic of SDG interactions is a relatively new research area with many knowledge gaps. Some of these gaps are addressed in this summary of a Special Feature of Sustainability Science, including new findings and emerging issues on (1) the characteristics of SDG interactions; (2) methods/methodology to analyse these interactions; and (3) the elaboration of drivers that influence SDG synergies. The

South American Camelids (SACs) make several material and non-material contributions to people and are a key component of the Andean biocultural heritage. From the perspective of the IPBES’ Conceptual Framework, SACs constitute the “nature” component in the complex system of interactions between human societies and the Andean mountain environment. There are four SAC living species today, two of which

Finding leverage points for sustainability transformation of industrial and infrastructure systems is challenging, given that transformation is emergent from the complex interactions among socio-technical system elements over time within a specific social, technical and geographical context. Participatory multi-modelling, in which modellers and stakeholders collaborate to develop multiple interacting

Dam planning and construction is notoriously difficult. It is highly complex, involving a multitude of social, environmental, economic and technological questions that often become politicised in the process; negative impacts are often concentrated on small, vulnerable groups within society, while the benefits are typically spread in a much more diffuse pattern; it requires changing riverine ecosystems

The integration of sport and sustainable development can positively enhance social and environmental outcomes to encourage a sustainable future. Only a limited amount of knowledge exists regarding the sustainable behavior perceptions of sport participants. Specifically, this study examined gender differences for active sport event participants' socially (SRBI) and environmentally responsible behavioral

Teaching about matters related to sustainable development requires not only a personal motivation from educators, but also a variety of competences. This paper reports on a multi-country study, which aimed at identifying the level of importance given to desired competences on sustainable development by teaching staff at a number of higher education institutions. On the basis of the findings, the paper

This paper explores the maintenance of livelihoods under climate, environmental, and economic development pressures, through the case of Thang Binh District in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. Within widespread recognition of the need to link sustainable livelihoods approaches with climate change adaptation, there is growing awareness of the importance of people-centered approaches which keep the diverse

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is in a unique position to deliver on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.6 by reforming global fisheries subsidies in 2020. Yet, a number of unanswered questions threaten to inhibit WTO delegates from crafting a smart agreement that improves global fisheries health. We combine global data on industrial fishing activity, subsidies, and stock assessments to show

As the level of understanding about climate change has increased, the term “climate security” has been increasingly used in the rapidly growing literature on this subject. Although Japan has officially acknowledged the importance of tackling climate change, discussion of climate security has been almost nonexistent among Japanese governmental officials, politicians, and academics. Our aim was to trace

The sustainability in the management of scientific information is becoming compromised in this new age of Big Data. Herein, I present and discuss some of the main challenges of this situation in both scientific practice and scientific communication. A major challenge is trying to fill the growing gap between the rate at which new data accumulated and the rate at which these yield new knowledge. Another

Japan’s mid-century strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050 requires rapid energy system changes, which may lead to stranded assets in fossil fuel-related infrastructure. Existing studies have shown that massive stranding of assets in the energy supply side is possible; few studies have involved economy-wide stranded asset analysis. In this study, we estimated stranded investments

This study examines the hypothesis that social capital can be a foundation for community disaster resilience with an analysis of empirical findings from the August 2018 earthquake recovery on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, a globally known coastal tourism destination. Positive links between community social capital and community disaster resilience are hypothesized, but the extent to which an iterative

In sustainability science, interdisciplinarity, i.e., the integration of perspectives from different disciplines, is built collectively from interactions among researchers of various disciplines (“collective interdisciplinarity”) but also results from the fact that researchers have backgrounds in multiple disciplines (“individual interdisciplinarity”). We applied social network analysis tools to analyze

While there is growing agreement on the competencies sustainability professionals should possess as well as the pedagogies to develop them, the practice of assessing students’ sustainability competencies is still in its infancy. Despite growing interest among researchers, there has not yet been a systematic review of how students’ sustainability competencies are currently assessed. This review article

According to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), poverty eradication in the 21st century means everyday access to decent health care, education and livelihoods, political participation, social inclusion, a clean and safe environment, and more. These are aspirational goals that together support a decent quality of life. Crossing monetary, ‘poverty thresholds’ may enable such goals. Most estimates

Five years after adoption of the 2030 Agenda, there is a general lack of progress in reaching its Sustainable Development Goals—be it on national, regional, or global scales. Scientists attribute this above all to insufficient understanding and addressing of interactions between goals and targets. This study aims to contribute to the methodological conceptualization of the 2030 Agenda’s implementation

Rigorous sustainability science includes addressing pressing real-world problems, weaving multiple knowledge systems, and striving for transformative change. However, these key attributes of sustainability science often conflict with university structures and established academic work practices, for instance with regard to frequent long-distance travel. Such contradictions between key principles of

Engaging appropriately with sustainability transformations requires adopting an integral perspective on related system dynamics. This view underpins the sustainable development goals. Informing policy and decision making from a consistently integral perspective, however, remains a key challenge. To some extent, the leverage points approach has proved useful in doing so in terms of providing an encompassing

Marine litter, the majority of which is plastic, is one of the most pressing global environmental challenges impacting the planet. One way coastal communities respond to this challenge is through the environmental stewardship practice of volunteer beach cleanups. Beyond providing temporarily cleaner local beaches, how might these beach cleanups have broader impacts in the global struggle against plastic

The current coronavirus outbreak may provide an illustrative analogy for sustainability challenges, exemplifying how challenges such as climate change may become wicked problems demanding novel and drastic solution attempts.

In this paper, we explore the notion of systems entrepreneurship in the context of innovation systems (IS) dedicated to transformations towards sustainability. To this end, our paper draws primarily but not exclusively on the leverage points concept, which was originally proposed by Donella H. Meadows and recently refined by sustainability scientists. More precisely, we flesh out four general propositions

The concept of sustainability science is paramount to establish a development thinking with deep and thorough considerations of hybridized on-ground realities shaped by the interplay of energy, land, economic, and climatic elements. This special feature intends to engage sustainability science in understanding the role of bioenergy in sustainable development, particularly for cases in East Asia. Especially

The expansion and intensification of agriculture as well as the associated land clearing are threatening both biodiversity and human wellbeing in tropical areas. Implementing agroforestry systems through a landscape approach has a strong potential for integrating nature conservation objectives into agricultural systems. A key challenge for implementing the landscape approach is that political processes

This study develops a projection model of future population distribution on the basis of Japan’s current depopulation trend and applies this model to scenario analyses that assume population compactification and dispersion. The model enables a description of population migration at two levels. First, municipal populations are projected using the cohort-component method, and second, the spatial distribution

COVID-19 is impacting the whole world. The impacts are different on different countries and societal groups, and those who are poor, mobile, and displaced are disproportionally affected. There are different ways that they are affected: they are more vulnerable to contracting the disease while living in shelter, have many barriers to access to social services and health care, difficulty in accessing

The term agroforestry covers practices that are promoted to maintain or even enhance biodiversity. However, the relationship between agroforestry and invasive species is rarely addressed, even though the spread of such species is an important issue, not only ecologically but also economically and socially. Over the past few decades, humans have greatly accelerated the process of biological invasions

New applied approaches are needed to address urgent, global environmental issues. Practitioners, scholars, and policy makers alike call for increased integration of natural and social sciences to develop new frameworks for better addressing the range of contemporary environmental issues. From a theoretical perspective, social–ecological systems (SES) offers a novel approach for enhancing sustainability

Agroforestry and sustainable landscape management are key strategies for implementing the UN-Sustainable Development Goals across the world’s production landscapes. However, both strategies have so far been studied in isolation from each other. This editorial introduces a special feature dedicated to scrutinizing the role of agroforestry in sustainable landscape management strategies. The special feature

Agroforestry intercropping systems (AIS), in which crops grow between widely spaced tree rows, can address several land-use challenges in regions of agricultural intensification and decline. Since their contribution to landscape sustainability depends on their coherence with the sociocultural dimension of landscapes, understanding the potential impacts of AIS on rural residents becomes necessary to

In Japan, abandonment of forest management and underuse of forest resources are substantial challenges to environmental protection and sustainable wood production, while in many other countries, leaving a forest untouched may be perceived as positive for conserving the forest. This study thus analyses the scientific knowledge landscape on the causes and consequences of reduced human intervention in

Sustainable management of water resources is becoming increasingly important in the face of challenges from urbanization, climate change, globalization, and other societal changes. Hong Kong, a water scarce city, is particularly in need of sustainable water management. In this paper, we focus on the key players in Hong Kong’s water management and assess their capacities to pick up signals, balance

Hundreds of sustainability programs have emerged at universities and colleges around the world over the past 2 decades. A prime question for employers, students, educators, and program administrators is what competencies these programs develop in students. This study explores convergence on competencies for sustainability programs. We conducted a Delphi study with 14 international experts in sustainability

We analyze how the optimal spatial budget distribution for protecting ecosystem services under two extreme market conditions results in different ecological–economic tradeoffs for balance between conservation and sustainable development. As a case study, we develop an empirical framework for the optimal spatial budget distribution given the objectives of maximizing forest carbon storage and maximizing

Agroforestry is considered a foundation for multi-functional, socio-ecological landscape transformation. Landscapes where agroforestry is practiced contribute to the full range of goods and services from agriculture to natural resources needed for social and ecological sustainability. Yet the barriers to large-scale agroforestry adoption are substantial, rooted in the misalignment between risk-takers