Agriculture (re)-territorialisation: visions, tensions, and transition pathways in European food systems - Nicolas Loodts; Christine Frison; Nicolas Dendoncker; Julie Hermesse (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Entanglements of knowledge and action in sustainability science: reclaiming reflexivity to embrace the uncomfortable - Viola Hakkarainen; Anita Lazurko (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The trajectory of the current socio-ecological crises is not improving, motivating several researchers to suggest that sustainability scientists should engage more actively in the transformations our work demands of broader society. Possibilities for action range from placing pressure on powerful economic and political structures through individual advocacy or activism to adopting more reflexive, action-oriented and transdisciplinary approaches in our research. Yet, dominant perspectives at the science-policy-society interface often expect researchers to remain separate from and neutral to the complexities and politics of the ‘real-world’, particularly in times of geopolitical and economic change, pitting personal motivations and values against those of our work and institutions. As a result, sustainability scientists exist in a ‘double reality’ , in which they produce evidence supporting the need for transformative change but feel a lack of individual agency to act. In this paper, we aim to explore the uncomfortable space created by this double reality. We first propose that from a (critical) complexity worldview, the complex nature of sustainability challenges deems all research practice as a situated intervention, offering an opportunity for a more nuanced discussion about how sustainability scientists can take responsibility for their position in broader society. From this view, we unpack three sources of discomfort in the entanglements of knowledge and action: the resistance to confronting our own subjectivity in relation to others and our institutions; disorientation from getting lost in pluralism; and the fear of intentional engagement with power and politics. We then suggest that reclaiming the political and provocative roots of reflexivity can better equip researchers and their institutions to deal with the normative, plural, and political complexities that surface at the science-policy-society interfaces, thereby enabling a more critical and action-oriented approach to sustainability science.

From diverse interests to collective action: a framework to identify ‘theme bridges’ as entry points to co-design multi-stakeholder partnerships in a shared multifunctional dryland context - Sandra Hernández-Valdez; Ricardo Ismael Mata-Páez; Natalia Martínez-Tagüeña; Elisabeth Huber‐Sannwald; Claudia Lorena Lauterio-Martínez; Víctor Manuel Reyes-Gómez; David Borré-González; Manuel Rodríguez-Muñoz (Sustainability Science, 2025)

A data framework for assessing nature-based solutions' contribution to the urban metabolism of informal settlements - Dorothy Julian Nalumu; Daniela Perrotti; Elisabetta Rosa (Sustainability Science, 2025)

A typology of interdisciplinary collaborations: insights from agri-food transformation research - Benjamin Hofmann; Ueli Reber; Priska Ammann; Julia Dötzer; Jennifer Mark; Chloe McCallum; Milena Wiget; Lucca Zachmann (Sustainability Science, 2025)
To understand complex societal transformations, scholars have called for more interdisciplinary research in which researchers from various disciplines collaborate. To support the implementation of such collaborations, we introduce a novel typology of interdisciplinary collaborations developed from the literature and from structured reflection on our own research experience. The typology distinguishes (I) common base, (II) common destination, and (III) sequential link type of interdisciplinary collaborations. Common base refers to an interdisciplinary collaboration at one research stage that later separates into parallel disciplinary work; common destination to a collaboration where separate disciplinary work feeds into joint interdisciplinary work at the next stage; and sequential link to a completed stage of disciplinary research that provides the basis for research in another discipline. We illustrate the typology with a case study of interdisciplinary collaborations in a research project that studied the potential for an evidence-based transformation of agricultural pesticide governance. The project involved researchers from seven natural, health, and social science disciplines who developed a process for forming and maintaining interdisciplinary collaborations. We provide five examples of interdisciplinary collaborations from the project, explaining for each its practical design and implementation, its contribution to overall research goals, and related opportunities and challenges. The examples show that the typology can systematize the thinking about interdisciplinary collaborations and enable critical reflection about interdisciplinary research design and implementation. Based on our reflections as early-career researchers, we conclude with lessons that can inform future interdisciplinary research projects on agri-food transformation and beyond.

A meaningful performative experience: using Forum Theatre as an ethical method in sustainability science - María Mancilla García; Lena Bertemes Lalia; Marlino Mubai; Tilman Hertz; Elizabeth Maria Drury O’Neill; Caroline Abunge; Salomão Olinda Bandeira; François Bousquet; Christopher Cheupe; Dadivo José Combane; Tim Daw; Nyawira Muthiga; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Sustainability scientists have engaged in extensive discussions on ethical ways of doing research and argued on the importance of co-production approaches to counter knowledge extractivism. The specific issue of research fatigue, often associated with knowledge extractivism, and the possible methods to counter it, have however received less attention. This paper seeks to contribute to discussions on ethical ways of doing research by focusing on our experience of using theatre, specifically, Forum Theatre, to investigate divergent perceptions of environmental change and related tensions among selected coastal communities in Kenya and Mozambique. We argue that Forum Theatre constitutes an ethical method for sustainability scientists for four reasons: (i) it allows to co-produce knowledge with participants; (ii) it facilitates horizontal exchange; (iii) it creates joyful moments; and (iv) it enables the transmission of skills that remain with participants beyond project durations. The paper engages with these four themes, first theoretically and then proposing a reflection based on our project experience. In the last section, we warn against some of the limitations of the approach.

Governing University Living Labs for sustainability transformations: insights from 18 international case studies - Paris Hadfield; Darren Sharp; Jonas Pigeon; Rob Raven (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In recent years, scholarly debate has grown around a perceived gap between societal impact rhetoric and the support structures for interdisciplinary and applied research, education, and innovation in universities. University Living Labs (UniLLs) provide a window into this relationship as they transcend disciplinary boundaries and linear modes of engagement to enable real-world experimentation and learning in response to societal challenges such as sustainable development. However, few studies examine the institutional contexts in which UniLLs operate, thus limiting our understanding of universities’ capacity for sustainability experimentation. This study examines how the institutional structures, cultures, and practices of universities enable or constrain the governance of sustainability-oriented UniLLs. Our study is grounded in the practical work of organising and conducting UniLLs, drawing on interviews with 39 academics and practitioners involved in UniLLs at 18 universities in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Singapore, the UK, and the USA. Our research findings demonstrate that (1) UniLLs are enabled by the institutionalisation of sustainable development agendas, and the relational and discursive work of key university staff. (2) UniLLs are often limited in scope and longevity by a project logic and work against entrenched academic and operational organising structures and corporate logics. (3) Some UniLLs overcome these barriers by leveraging institutional power and mobilising resources to embed UniLL governance in university-wide structures. We present practical enabling processes for institutionalising UniLLs in universities demonstrated by the cases and reflect on the university governance paradigm for advancing a transformative impact agenda.

The questions we ask matter: insights from place-based research on nature’s contributions to people - Milena Gross; Daria Shepeleva; Friederike Vogel; Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba; Ugo Arbieu; Jasmine Pearson; Jennifer Kasanda Sesabo; Fabia Codalli; Berta Martín-López (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Inclusive management requires accounting for the diverse ways in which nature contributes to people’s lives. To uncover the broad spectrum of Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) expressed by social actors, using plural methods has emerged as a useful approach in sustainability science. Yet, we lack research on how different interview questions influence participants’ expressions of NCP. Given the paucity of methodological studies that explore this, we investigated the effect of four distinct framings in interview questions (Appreciation, Benefits, Well-being, and Importance) on the NCP diversity expressed by different social actors. To this end, we analyzed interviews with nature conservationists ( n = 28), tour guides ( n = 20), and tourists ( n = 38) at Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. We uncovered 27 NCP. Further, the framing of the questions worked differently for social actors to express NCP. Multiple question-framings were necessary for all social actors to express a diversity of NCP, i.e., conservationists expressed all 27 NCP, guides 25 NCP, and tourists 19 NCP, respectively. Moreover, ten NCP were sensitive to the question-framing, the social actor, or even both, suggesting that these factors conditioned the NCP diversity we uncovered. Arguing that methods used to uncover NCP serve as ‘NCP-articulating institutions’, we claim that researchers can reduce the risk of response omission by purposefully designing their research. Complementing previous calls for plural methods, our results showed that a ‘within-method pluralizing’ approach, i.e., using various question-framings as tools within one method, can also amplify social actors’ NCP expression by drawing on the power of words.

Artists-in-residence to foster more reflective modelling practices - Lisette van Beek (Sustainability Science, 2025)
One of the most prominent tools to explore sustainable futures are integrated assessment models (IAMs). Although IAMs have analytical strengths, their limitations risk closing-down imaginaries of sustainable futures. Critics therefore argue for a more ‘reflective’ IAM practice, where modellers critically question and reconsider their assumptions in explored futures and their role in climate policymaking. This paper scrutinises an unexplored avenue to incite this deeper reflection: artists-in-residence. It reports on a unique collaboration between a social scientist (the author), two artists and an IAM team involving interviews, group discussions, public events and a workshop. This culminated into an artistic intervention: the Future Models Manual, a speculative manual that encourages modellers to challenge and rethink their practice. By analysing the conversations between modellers and by conducting follow-up interviews with the artists and modellers, the author scrutinises how the artists stimulated reflection among IAM modellers. The analysis suggests that by asking unexpected questions, identifying new metaphors and using visual artefacts, the artists incited reflection on the epistemological underpinnings of modelling, the ethical implications of model choices and the political influence of their scenarios. This exploratory study points to artists-in-residence as a promising avenue to incite ‘more-than-rational’ reflection in modelling practices. However, challenging and transforming the IAM practice would require a move away from the persistent view of artists as science communicators and more sustained and reciprocal art–modelling exchange. This paper not only contributes to ongoing scholarly debates on IAMs, but also offers empirical insights into the potential of art–science interactions in the context of climate and sustainability more broadly.

Three perspectives to integrate animal interests into the global Sustainable Development Agenda - Natalie Herdoiza; Ernst Worrell; Floris van den Berg (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Including animal interests in sustainable development policies and practices is gaining attention as a strategy to address key sustainability challenges. However, practical frameworks and guidance for achieving this integration remain scarce. This paper analyses how animal interests can be effectively incorporated into the global Sustainable Development Agenda by leveraging a variety of moral perspectives. It explores the challenges and opportunities of reconciling anthropocentric, sentientistic, and ecocentric viewpoints and advocates for a holistic approach that acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental well-being. Despite inherent conflicts and limitations, the study argues that meaningful integration requires dialogue, compromise, and policy solutions that balance moral considerations with practical feasibility. By assessing the strengths, limitations, and synergies of these perspectives, this paper offers a theoretical foundation to inform policy development and guide future research on integrating animal interests into sustainability frameworks.

Participatory modelling and scenario exploration to address the air pollution challenge in Thailand and Laos - Cameron Allen; Matteo Pedercini; Carla Assuad; Vadim Nuñez Pawlowsky; Christine Wellington-Moore (Sustainability Science, 2025)
For countries in South-East Asia, air pollution presents a complex challenge that has proven difficult to effectively address. Policy action needs to be informed by a clear understanding of the most important drivers and sources of air pollution in local contexts, and the costs and benefits of different measures in mitigating these sources. Here, we present the findings from a participatory system dynamics modelling study which aimed to support policy and decision-making to manage the transboundary air pollution challenge in Thailand and Lao PDR. The research included two participatory modelling projects undertaken at the subnational level for Chiang Rai Province and Vientiane Prefecture which developed and applied an integrated air pollution (IAP) model. The participatory model development process undertaken with governments, private sector and civil society stakeholders identified key sources of air pollution (PM 2.5 emissions), socioeconomic drivers and impacts, and potential policy interventions which were incorporated into the IAP model. Model projections for 2030 identified key sources of emissions for Chiang Rai as waste burning, cooking/heating and small vehicles, while for Vientiane they were cooking/heating, cement production, waste burning, small vehicles and petrochemical sources. Through group-based scenario gaming exercises, stakeholders gained insights on the cost and efficacy of different policy options by testing alternative investment scenarios. For both Chiang Rai and Vientiane, the largest reductions in PM 2.5 emissions were projected from policies that targeted the waste burning, household cooking and transport sectors. This contrasted somewhat to stakeholder perceptions regarding the dominance of air pollution sources such as open burning of agricultural residues and forest fires. We highlight key insights and implications of the study for policy and research including the use of participatory systems dynamics modelling as a method for understanding and addressing complex sustainability challenges such as air pollution.

The role of care in creating narratives for sustainability - Laura Blanco-Murcia; Juan Moreno-Cruz (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Value change debt as a window of opportunity for transformative change: a case study on the mixed Indigenous food system of St. Paul Island, Alaska - Silja Zimmermann; Brian J. Dermody; Courtney Carothers; Valeria Di Fant; Lauren M. Divine; Kadyn Lestenkof-Zacharof; Veronica M. Padula; Bert Theunissen; Martin J. Wassen; Ine Dorresteijn (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Arctic Indigenous food systems are essential to the survival of local communities, but face significant challenges due to environmental, economic, and social pressures. The objective of this study is to elicit values of the mixed Indigenous food system on St. Paul Island, Alaska, and understand their potential as deep leverage points for transformative change in the context of their historical co-evolution with the local food system. To achieve this objective, we engage three generational groups within the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island to obtain local food system stories. From these stories, we (i) elicit historical events that are thought to have shaped the local food system, (ii) identify factors that influence the food system in its present and future states, and (iii) delineate intrinsic, instrumental, and relational food system values. Our findings show that most identified historical events are perceived to have undermined the Indigenous food system and that most factors identified to shape present and future food system states present barriers for community members to engage in traditional practices. Yet, despite this, values that relate to traditional Indigenous livelihoods remain central in the local value system. These results suggest a value change debt, i.e., a time lag between changes in peoples’ held values following changes in the system around them. We propose that this lag provides a window of opportunity to leverage transformative change. We argue that as long as traditional food system values persist, there is potential to reconfigure the food system in a way that embraces these values, enhancing the system's relevance to the community's way of life.

Critical sustainability science: advancing sustainability transformations - Stefano B. Longo; Ellinor Isgren; Michael Carolan (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The objective of this paper is to present a critical sustainability science research program, which is founded on two critical theoretical/philosophical traditions: critical realism and historical materialism. We elaborate these traditions to clarify what they can analytically offer to socioecological analyses in sustainability science and emphasize their prospective contributions to sustainability transitions and transformations. A critical sustainability science research program can facilitate bridging the natural and social sciences, provide crucial insights into social conditions and processes that drive ongoing and concerning environmental changes, identify—often underexplored—socioecological conditions for sustainability transitions/transformations, and reveal structural process that can advance or impede them. The critical sustainability science approach offers an alternative to both mainstream and (critical) idealist/culturalist approaches in sustainability research.

The challenges of Walloon male chicks from laying hens: can animal welfare match farming territorialisation? - Séverine Lagneaux; Sara Gisella Omodeo; Claire Diederich; Philippe Burny; Eric Froidmont (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Forgotten fish and food reterritorialization: a Swedish citizen- and professional initiative to re-embed seafood - Viktor Vesterberg; Maris Boyd Gillette (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Mounting evidence demonstrates that the global food system degrades the environment, disenfranchises small-scale producers, and homogenizes foodways. Given that more than 50% of seafood worldwide enters international trade, efforts at transformation must attend to seafood as well as agricultural products. In this article, we investigate a Swedish citizen- and professional initiative, designed and implemented by the culinary civil-society organization Rutabaga Academy that reimagined Swedish seafood provisioning. Forgotten Fish: Heritage for the Future of Sustainable Fish Consumption assembled small-scale fishers, chefs, and other actors to “joyfully explore” the taste of abundant, locally available seafood and its potential for mitigating the homogeneity of fish in large-scale consumption circuits, threats to marine ecosystems and fish populations in Swedish waters, and the disadvantages of the existing food system for local fishers, heritage, and gastronomy. Participants tasted “forgotten” fish species that once played a role in local cuisines while articulating the values of the seafood provisioning system they wanted. We use concepts from Polanyi’s The Great Transformation to explore the initiative, interrogating the roles of participants in reterritorializing seafood production and consumption and the tensions characterizing their diverse visions. Participants shared a conviction that change was needed, and a belief that celebrity chefs could catalyse this change, yet the values they prioritized varied depending on their position in the food system, with different consequences for what reterritorializing seafood meant and for whom. Fishers were essential for re-embedding seafood in local and regional contexts, while chefs contributed primarily by building communities of concern around forgotten fish.

Regional agroecological stewardship: a framework to analyze the (re)territorialization of sustainable food systems - William Ying; Markus Egermann (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The negative effects of climate change as well as the COVID-19 pandemic have underscored the fragility of the current global food system. To respond to such crises, the European Union’s (EU) “Farm to Fork” strategy strives to reshape the region’s food system to be more resilient and calls for new approaches to do so. The practices connected to the concepts of both agroecology and environmental stewardship are referenced for their potential to foster a transformation toward a more sustainable food system. However, these practices have been conducted on a small scale and independent from each other. A combined and holistic view of food systems based on the practices of both concepts remains missing. To close this gap, we developed a regional agroecological stewardship framework using the current literature to explore how these concepts can be combined to generate new insights for (re)territorialization by expanding agroecological practices beyond individual initiatives. To validate and refine the key components of the framework, we used an illustrative case study (Free State of Saxony, Germany) and interviewed relevant stakeholders including an agroecology expert, farm workers, network actors, and public officials from different governance levels. We identified actors and their motivations and capacity, a stewardship network, the outcomes of agroecological activities and the amplification of (re)territorialization as key components for regional agroecological stewardship. The framework can be used as an evaluation tool to assess the status of agroecological stewardship in a region and to determine regional challenges that need to be addressed.

Re-territorialising skills? Insights from ethnography on solidarity-economy food activism - Cristina Grasseni (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The article addresses the role of citizens in setting up short food chains in the framework of the solidarity economy movement in Lombardy, Italy. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork with solidarity economy activists and longitudinal ethnography (2009–2023), the article critically analyses solidarity-driven experimentations with local food systems, including direct bulk-buying from farmers and setting up a Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) to self-certify organic agriculture quality standards as attempts at (re)territorialising the food chain. This implies innovative relationships and practices connecting farmers and consumers in a role for citizens as ‘co-producers’. Hurdles and dilemmas about trust, skill, and transparency question which role citizens can take as levers of change. Addressing one of the questions posed in this special issue (“what is the place of citizens and collectives in innovative supply chains?”), the article reflects on what kind of skills are required, and perhaps lacking, for a more active involvement of citizens in ‘co-production’. The article focusses on (1) how trust between producer and consumer is supposed to be engendered in relations of proximity, (2) the reciprocal performance of expected roles among consumers and farmers, (3) the difficulties of evidencing reciprocal transparency without negotiating mutual reskilling.

Identifying visions on agricultural diversification: a first step toward sustainable agrifood transformations in the Bauges - Carine Pachoud; Nicolas Dendoncker; Sabine Girard (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Alternative Food Networks and agri-food regime transitions: evolution of institutional knowledge on local food from the fruits and vegetables sector in France - Raphaël James Somerville Stephens (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Systemic barriers preventing farmer engagement in the agricultural climate transition: a qualitative study - John Whitton; Andrew Carmichael (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Farmers and the agricultural sector are facing an uncertain future, due to rapidly changing agricultural policy and a nexus of commercial, environmental and biodiversity challenges brought on by anthropogenic climate change. Balancing the interests of the farming community and natural environment is generating organisational and personal conflict, rather than effective agricultural adaption and a focus on the net zero transition. In this paper, we consider how farmers and the wider farming community can participate in engagement and decision-making for the transition, on their own terms, whilst ensuring social justice for fair and equitable decision-making. We discuss findings from our research project, that used questionnaires and follow up semi-structured interviews with farmers and farming groups to reveal systemic issues that prevent farmers engaging with the climate transition to net zero during their everyday practice. We highlight the structural relationships that form these barriers and frustrate farmers when designing and implementing farm interventions to agricultural systems during times of transition. Farmers have highlighted barriers to be associated with policy, (uncertain government strategy, landowner bias in government policy and tenancy restrictions, government bureaucracy—particularly environment schemes), commercial (market forces—downward pressure from supermarkets on price points, availability of labour due to seasonal migration restrictions, increasing cost of labour) and interpersonal (succession—uncertain future of the family farm due to limited income). This frustrates the ability of farmers to address climate change through farming practices and undermines the implementation of innovative engagement practices, such as co-produced interventions, in policy and decision-making settings.

Towards true prices in food retailing: the value added tax as an instrument transforming agri-food systems - B. Oebel; L. Stein; A. Michalke; S. Stoll-Kleemann; T. Gaugler (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Current crises (i.e., climate crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting energy and food shortages) indicate the need for robust, and sustainable supply chains with regional food production and farmland to secure food supply in the European Union (EU). Recent research shows that organic food is more resilient to supply chain disruptions and price fluctuations. In this context, we examine an approach for the sustainable and resilient transformation of agri-food networks: can an adaptation of value added tax (VAT) levels work as a financial incentive to amplify resilient agricultural practices and sustainable dietary patterns? Within the setting of the amendment of the European framework directive on the use of VAT in 2022, we model the effects of adapting the current German VAT system by (1) reducing VAT on organic vegetarian food to 0% and (2) raising VAT on conventional meat and fish to 19%. Based on historical data on organic sales shares and price elasticities, we project sales shares differentiated by product group for each scenario. Then, we calculate expected tax revenues, changes in consumption patterns, and arising total external climate costs in Germany for both scenarios. Our results show that the overall consumption share of organic food would increase by 21.83% due to the modeled VAT reform compared to the status quo. Despite the VAT reduction to 0% on organic vegetarian products, the measure would yield €2.04 billion in extra tax revenues in Germany per year due to the increased taxation on conventional meat products. We find that annual environmental costs of €5.31 billion can be avoided as a result of lower external climate costs of organic and vegetarian food. Therefore, adjusting VAT rates in the food market can be a political instrument to drive organic food consumption and reduce animal livestock. This supports re-territorialization of agriculture and a more sustainable and resilient European food supply.

Socio-techno-ecological transition dynamics in the re-territorialization of food production: the case of wild berries in Sweden - Johnn Andersson; Paul Plummer; Thomas Taro Lennerfors; Charlotta Hedberg (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Recent geopolitical and economic crises underline the need for a European transition towards a more sustainable food system. Scholars and policymakers have called for a re-territorialization of food production to strike a better balance between local, regional and global value chains. This paper explores the role of re-territorialization through an analysis of the emergence, development and current transformation of the Swedish wild berry value chain. The analysis combines the multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions with a socio-techno-ecological system approach and draws on interviews, informal conversations, participant observations and a range of secondary sources. The resulting case narrative shows how processes of de-territorialization may result in regimes that fail to address sustainability potential and problems. It also highlights that processes of re-territorialization challenge established regimes by promoting niches that represent different, albeit complementary, value chain configurations. Apart from a rich empirical narrative that brings useful knowledge to stakeholders to the Swedish wild berry value chain, the paper contributes to the theoretical understanding re-territorialization, shows how the ecological dimension can be accounted for with the multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions and presents a number of general policy implications.

Has research on health co-benefits influenced urban climate and transport planning in the United Kingdom, United States, Japan, and France? - Zahrah Ali; Eric Zusman; Bing-yu Chiu; Matthew Hengesbaugh (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Planning sustainable heat networks: governance and sociotechnical practices in Northeast England - William Otchere-Darko; Michael Crilly; Tyne Jenkinson; Caitlin Harper; Emily Ingall-Tombs; Esmee Bryson-Harris; Eleanor Ritchie; Ryan Siu; Sam Wightman; Alexander Kearns (Sustainability Science, 2025)
District heating (DH) forms part of decarbonised energy pathways, potentially offering decentralised, cheap heating for dense urban areas. Entailing both carbonised and decarbonised heat sources, with multiple and overlapping technologies, DH is situated within the milieu of energy and urban planning. This presents questions as to how local governance arrangements and practices are created/emerge to respond to/(co)produce its spatial, energy and technological materialisations. Utilising mixed methods, the study focuses on selected DH projects in Northeast England—a region with historic coal infrastructure and recent heat network projects. Findings first show forms of partnership, outsourcing and subsidiarising as governance arrangements surrounding the DH projects in sharing expertise, resources and risks. These arrangements are implemented through legal agreements, negotiations, reporting mechanisms as well as infrastructure and heat co-production practices. Secondly, these diverse governance arrangements also reflect attempts to address funding, energy security and regulatory issues increasingly refracted through local geothermal endowments and incumbent gas incentives. In effect, the research notes that policy and governance practices should be responsive to a heterogeneous, hybrid and co-produced heatscape, challenging the ideal of transitioning to a uniform DH.

Solar power, land control, and Indigenous resistance in Yucatán, Mexico - Itzell Torres (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This article examines the suspension of the Yucatán Solar PV park, a project awarded through Mexico’s first long-term power auction, situating it within the broader context of the country’s energy reform and its implications for Indigenous territories. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and informed by political ecology and critical agrarian studies, the study analyzes how legal instruments, spatial tools, and discursive practices are deployed to render Maya territory investable for solar development. Central to the analysis are the dynamics of land acquisition, which reveal the land's profound social, cultural, and ecological significance for Maya communities, including the location of a sacred site. These dynamics exemplify green grabbing as an initial phase in the contested processes of land control. The article outlines the mechanisms of legitimation through which actors seek to consolidate authority over land, as well as the counter-processes of resistance, legal action, and competing territorial claims that ultimately led to the project’s suspension. The study considers the wider implications of the suspension for the social fabric and ecological integrity of surrounding communities, offering critical insights into the contested politics of land control and territorial transformation under green capitalism, and how grassroots resistance can disrupt these trajectories.

The dawn of solar photovoltaics: emergent political economies at the solar–agri–land nexus - Siddharth Sareen; Shayan Shokrgozar; James McCarthy; Steven Wolf (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Editorial: Special-purpose money for sustainability - Paul Weaver; Alf Hornborg; Alexander Paulsson; Gabriella Spinelli (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The rationale for this Editorial and the Special Feature Issue (SFI) it introduces is the conviction that money and monetary system design are largely overlooked in debates concerning sustainability. Modern monies (i.e., conventional sovereign fiat currencies) and aspects of them (such as their issuance, functions, and features) tend to be taken for granted as self-evident foundations for the organization of human exchange. The design of conventional money is not so self-evident as generally assumed, however. In its function as a generalized unit of account, modern money makes possible an economic conceptualization of efficiency that now dominates markets and economic thinking. Combined with currency convertibility and capital mobility, this has provided unprecedented levels of commensurability. As a feature of modern markets, this generalized commensurability is rarely questioned or reflected upon despite its significance for sustainability and growing awareness within the humanities and social sciences of the “agency” potential of artifacts (Latour in Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005). From an ontological stance of actant theory, we argue here that money and its design clearly impact on the nature of both social and human–environmental relations. Paradoxically, money—perhaps the most influential artifact of all in modern society with momentous consequences for human society, ecosystems, and the biosphere—has so far largely escaped critical scrutiny. This Editorial and the Special Feature Issue it introduces examine the relation between money design and sustainability, and explore the potentially transformative roles that Special or Limited Purpose complementary currencies might play in sustainability transitions.

Conflicts and coexistence in rural Europe: pathways to sustainability in transitioning territories - Eirini Skrimizea; Valentino Marini Govigli; Agnieszka Nowak-Olejnik (Sustainability Science, 2025)

The governance anticommons in renewable energy: two cases from China’s solar expansion - Haifeng Deng; Yuanyuan Zhang (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Sunrise at the Salton Sea: environmental justice, land use change, and hydrosocial dynamics of solar energy transitions in the Imperial Valley, California - Dustin Mulvaney; James J. A. Blair; Alida Cantor (Sustainability Science, 2025)

To own the land is to own the sunlight: the significance of land tenure for solar power - James McCarthy (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Scaling agrivoltaics: planning, legal, and market pathways to readiness - Madeline Taylor; Nischala McDonnell; Peter Davies; Stefan Trück (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Agrivoltaics, which integrate solar photovoltaics with diverse agricultural activities on shared land, can play a pivotal role in advancing global decarbonization and agricultural innovation. Several European Union (EU) countries, states in the United States (US), and Asia Pacific nations are increasingly targeting the development of agrivoltaics. This includes Italy’s €1.7 billion investment to deploy 1.04 gigawatts (GW) of agrivoltaics and the US allocation of USD 75 million to agrivoltaics market incentives. In Australia, large-scale agrivoltaics are currently hindered by policy inertia, legal gaps, and absent market incentives to address emerging tensions between agricultural land use and renewable energy developments. In New South Wales (NSW), Australia, the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap aims to develop 12 GW of new renewable energy capacity and 2 GW of long-duration storage by establishing Renewable Energy Zones, primarily situated within rural areas. In response, the potential agricultural land alienation and fragmentation has prompted several planning and community engagement inquiries between 2022 and 2024. When regulated effectively, agrivoltaics presents a solution to clarify, protect, and enable agricultural landholder rights, stimulate planning policy innovation, and activate new energy market mechanisms. As a nascent socio-technical practice in NSW, agrivoltaics projects are developing iteratively due to the absence of agrivoltaic-specific planning policy, regulation, market incentives, and legal frameworks. This structural failure creates barriers to agrivoltaics scaling and may undermine social acceptance. This study conducts the first scaling readiness analysis of agrivoltaics in NSW, an emerging Australian state in agrivoltaic grazing practices, examining policy, regulation, market settings, and legal agreements creating obstacles and uncertainties. It presents key regulatory and legal reform recommendations to support scaling a commercially viable agrivoltaics sector promoting good grazing practices and enhancing social outcomes.

The resistance to solar energy expansion in Italy: a systemic perspective - Daniel Delatin Rodrigues; Marco Grasso (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This article examines the systemic resistance to the expansion of solar energy infrastructure in Italy. It does so with a focus on rural areas. Using a multifaceted methodological approach, the study analyses the economic, political, and cultural factors contributing to this resistance, which is closely intertwined with Italy’s reliance on fossil fuels. It identifies a complex network of opposing forces, including agricultural and industrial groups, political parties and environmental organisations, all committed to preserving the land and socio-economic continuity. By means of an analysis of national policies and case studies at different levels, the article highlights the tensions between renewable energy goals and local cultural and agricultural preservation efforts. Case studies in Sicily and Apulia highlight the complex dynamics at play, where large-scale solar projects have provoked a backlash due to concerns about land use, energy equity, and the socio-economic impact on rural communities. The findings show that such resistance is not simply a reaction to renewable energy projects; rather, it reflects deeper conflicts over cultural preservation, governance structures and economic transitions, and it often conceals attempts to strengthen the dependence on fossil fuels. The study highlights the need for integrated and inclusive approaches to renewable energy governance that address both local and systemic challenges in order to facilitate a just transition to a sustainable energy future.

For what and for whom? A political ecology of agrivoltaics in the Southwestern United States - Carrie Seay-Fleming; Tyler Swanson; Andrea Gerlak (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Analysing policy directions for utility- and small-scale solar installations in Norway - Tor Håkon Jackson Inderberg; Gustav Opsahl (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Politics over photovoltaics: unpacking the politically directed deployment of agrivoltaics in China - Zhanping Hu (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Nothing sweet about agrivoltaics? Discussions on the territorial adequacy of agrivoltaics in Reunion Island - Laure-Anne Plumhans (Sustainability Science, 2025)
By combining agricultural production and electricity generation, agrivoltaics presents a potential solution to land use conflicts resulting from the integration of photovoltaic (PV) systems into agricultural land. Yet, agrivoltaics offers a technological answer to complex social problems and may not automatically lead to consensual implementation. Based on interviews and field research data, this article analyzes local stakeholders’ perception of agrivoltaics in the French island of Reunion. The study takes place a few months before the release of a decree regularizing agrivoltaics on agricultural land. At this tipping point, I discuss how local territorial strategies such as food sovereignty, energy autonomy, and the protection of the sugarcane industry are mobilized to legitimize or de-legitimize agrivoltaics implementation in Reunion. Using concepts of territorialization and frontiers, the analysis demonstrates that the framing of agrivoltaics as territorially adequate is central to agrivoltaics' integration. In the context of increasing pressures to secure more land for PV, these findings highlight how agrivoltaics implementation extends beyond the energy versus agriculture debate to also include the type of agriculture and resource use enabled by agrivoltaics. Its alignment with existing sectors and local policies, here particularly the sugarcane industry, is crucial to understanding its implementation at local scales.

Solar industrialization, ‘sacrifice zones,’ and new environmental movements: emerging discourses of commonality and critique in Portugal’s energy transition - Ross Wallace; Kaya Schwemmlein; Susana Batel (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The transition to renewable energy is being pursued within neoliberal frameworks that prioritize market competition and industrial development, increasingly resulting in significant negative socio-ecological consequences and environmental injustices. As a result, scholars and activists are increasingly taking up more radical discursive strategies, adopting critical terms like ‘sacrifice zone,’ to describe marginalized places. In short, critiques of fossil fuel regimes are increasingly accompanied by an emerging critique of hegemonic renewable energy regimes. Through a case study of community resistance to a large-scale solar PV project in Alentejo, Portugal, this article aims to further understand this critique by analysing the arguments and discursive strategies that local movements are utilizing against business-as-usual renewable energy transitions and how they are received by powerful actors. Findings reveal that opposition is not solely driven by self-interest or place-attachment, but is deeply rooted in critiques of procedural and distributive injustices, framed through the critical and constructive discourse of ‘sacrifice zone’ which not only enabled residents to make sense of what was happening, but also allowed them to build new forms of territorial commonality and critique. This study highlights how the concept of the ‘sacrifice zone’ functions as a means of co-producing new knowledge and as a tool for explaining and coping with change. From the perspective of pragmatic sociology, it can also be viewed as a critical strategy of self-vulnerabilization—one that resists change, demands recognition, challenges state authority, and attempts to foster new territorial movements.

“This will destroy Jeev and Jantu”: infrastructures of modernity across water, energy, and land in Jaisalmer, India - Shayan Shokrgozar; Ashish Naik; Subina Shrestha (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In the context of contemporary socioecological crises brought about through the political ontology of colonial capitalism, concerns about planetary conditions and their mounting pervasive impacts continue. Recognizing the rejection of natureculture as pivotal to the survival of current extractivist modalities, this paper delves into the infrastructural harm in the state of Rajasthan, intertwining developmentalism with ecological modernization. Despite India's myriad and diverse lifeways, coloniality's enduring grip on knowledge and being persists in the ostensibly “post”-colonial era. This influence is particularly evident in the transformation of lands used by resource-dependent agropastoralists first into “resource” frontiers (i.e., “wastelands”) and later into commodity frontiers (i.e., industrial water and energy infrastructures). Drawing on six months of cumulative fieldwork (2022–2024), this paper identifies the infrastructural harms stemming from water and energy infrastructures in Jaisalmer, India. While not exhaustive—in the presence of other concurrent military and industrial projects—first water and later energy industrial projects capture a larger pattern of cumulative effects of exchanging habitat for development. We argue that through an amalgamation of extractive projects that neglect place-based onto-epistemologies, in favor of modernist infrastructures, the national environmental politics temporally follows a trajectory of harms in India—renewing the harms of the past into present day harms for agropastoral futures.

Energy democratisation through agrivoltaics? The territorialisation dynamics of community-based energy governance in Japan - Hayato Koga; Stefan Bouzarovski; Saska Petrova (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The recent ‘solar turn’ has led to an increased techno-economic materialisation of community-based energy governance (CEG), which may have the effect of reducing its transformative potential to attain democratic and just energy transitions. Although some studies have re-examined the transformative potential of CEG, there still remains a research gap regarding the role of agrivoltaics in shaping CEG. Drawing upon practices in Japan, one of the earliest countries to adopt agrivoltaics on a practical basis, this research aims to address the gap by demonstrating how the transformative potential of CEG is entangled with the particularity of the technology. In so doing, we utilise a conceptual framework of energy democracy informed by the works of Deleuze and Guattari. This framework attends to the ongoing dynamics of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation in the process of ‘becoming-democratic’, rather than essentialising specific characteristics of CEG. To unpack the socio-material configuration in the context of agrivoltaic CEG in Japan, we first show how the way the community is envisioned is contingent upon the choice of technology by building on 66 semi-structured interviews with CEG-related stakeholders throughout the country. To gain further insights into the practical manifestations, we examine a purportedly successful agrivoltaic CEG in Chiba Prefecture as a case study. Based on the evidence, we show that, contrary to the idealised potential of agrivoltaic CEG to deterritorialise the energy governance, the specific characteristics of agrivoltaics embedded in the spatial configurations, can also hinder the deterritorialisation of energy governance, as well as allowing its reterritorialisation.

Solar Capitalism: accumulation strategies and socio-ecological futures - Sofia Avila-Calero (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This overview article proposes the concept of Solar Capitalism to contribute to the emerging political economies and ecologies of energy transition. Solar Capitalism is here defined as the diverse set of accumulation strategies responding to the combined challenge of climate change and the progressive decline of fossil fuels globally: a process that implies shifts in the reliance of stock to flows forms of energy; from high to low energy capacities; and from abundant to relatively scarce natural resources and services. What differentiates Solar Capitalism from other solar economies (either historical forms or potential future forms) is the attempt to reproduce and expand circuits of capital accumulation under contemporary biophysical conditions, forcing the spatiotemporal profile of flow and common resources to work in terms of stock and enclosable energy resources. In the making of these shifts, Solar Capitalism pushes for the appropriation of “cheap” nature and labor, setting the stage for renewed forms of exploitation over peripheral geographies, communities, and species. As argued, solar capitalist frontiers are produced over land, minerals, and precarious labor, raising urgent questions for debates on just transitions and alternative solar futures.

Working at the crossroads of alternative currencies and degrowth: setting a research agenda - Jérémy Bouchez; Marlei Pozzebon; Alexander Paulsson (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In this review, we analyze the existing literature on the role of alternative currencies within degrowth . While degrowth emerged in the early 2000s alongside growing awareness of accelerating environmental crises and widening global inequalities, alternative currencies have a longer history. Alternative currencies have served as devices for communities seeking to become less dependent on the dominant economic system, but degrowth and technological advancements are potentially reshaping alternative currencies, both in what their purpose could be and in how they operate. When combined with degrowth, these currencies are often expected to foster greater resilience at the local level and slow down the pace of socio-ecological metabolism. Building on our review, we propose a research agenda that explores how policy proposals and concepts such as universal basic income, localization, and entropy can be understood in relation to alternative currencies. Our main contribution is to identify points of convergence and tension between alternative currencies and degrowth while proposing prospective research questions to guide future studies.

Legitimating grid-scale solar: shaping Pennsylvania’s farmland as a renewable energy landscape - Kaitlyn Spangler; Jennifer Baka; Hannah J. Wiseman; Zachary A. Goldberg; Kristin Schoenecker; Maya Weinberg (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Institutional prefiguration: community energy development through spaces of orchestration - Harry Lewis Lawford; Siddharth Sareen (Sustainability Science, 2025)
As a response to calls for decentralised energy infrastructure and inclusive decision-making processes in energy transitions, renewable energy communities (RECs) have emerged as innovative instruments to combat energy poverty and promote low-carbon energy. During 2021–2024, the Eurosolar4All project developed four solar photovoltaic (PV) RECs in four local contexts in Rome (Italy), Almada (Portugal), Coeur de Savoie (France), and Barcelona (Spain). Funded through the Horizon 2020 framework programme, the project aimed to produce diverse replicable models to alleviate energy poverty in vulnerable households. This paper examines the Eurosolar4All project and its pilots through the lens of prefigurative politics focused on local institutions. We draw on two questionnaires implemented across the four pilots, 18 semi-structured interviews with prospective beneficiaries, eight expert interviews with practitioners and participant observation during project meetings and site visits. The empirical analysis shows how the pilots worked to identify and empower vulnerable households while facing challenges related to path dependence and institutional inertia. These challenges relate to the project leaders’ (1) intramunicipal, (2) intermunicipal, and (3) trans-local work towards the enablement of pro-poor solar RECs. We show how the prefigurative politics of implementing the Eurosolar4All scheme surface in diverse ways in and across the cases and a related community of practice with ten follower municipalities and theorise the different levels as spaces of orchestration for prefigurative politics. We discuss how orchestration can counter an incumbent preference for centralised large-scale energy infrastructure, deeply embedded in modern energy systems ( path dependence ), to realise the potential social benefits of energy communities. In closing, we reflect upon how this enhances our understanding of the systemic limits to rapid upscaling of energy communities.

Wheeling energy, wielding power: unsettling community in Jordan’s solar turn - Kendra Kintzi (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Solar–water nexus: on local implications of the procurement and deployment of the first floating solar photovoltaics project in Indonesia - David Rudolph; Martha Maulidia; Hamidah Busyrah (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The possibility of deploying floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) systems on water bodies is increasingly promoted as a promising alternative to contested land acquisitions and land use conflicts associated with conventional solar projects, especially in countries of the Global South. In light of this assertion, the paper unpacks emerging issues at the solar–water nexus and explores territorial manifestations of procurement and deployment practices of the first utility-scale floating solar PV project in rural Indonesia, the 145 MW Cirata floating solar power plant. Empirical research draws on two periods of fieldwork conducted before and after construction of the solar farm, including interviews with developers, citizens, regional and local authorities, and fishing organisations and focus group discussions with local communities. We consider local contestations over the deployment of large-scale renewables as embedded in political–economic dynamics of the energy transition, which co-shape development and procurement practices and give rise to tensions between global development processes and local outcomes for host communities. The paper sheds critical light on how the deployment of the FPV project reconfigures residents’ relationships with the water body through an enclosure of parts of the reservoir, the displacement of water-based livelihoods and struggles for compensation and employment in the involved companies to maintain a living next to the solar farm. We conclude by pointing to tensions impinging on the emerging solar–water nexus in Indonesia and beyond, and juxtaposing our empirical insights with contestations associated with the development of land-based solar projects.

Farming the sun: the political economy of agrivoltaics in the European Union - Rubén Vezzoni (Sustainability Science, 2025)
What kind of agricultural practices do agrivoltaic systems incentivise? Under what circumstances can they deliver the promised benefits, and who is likely to bear the costs? Presented as a win–win solution for developing solar energy while enhancing farmland productivity, agrivoltaics offer several advantages—including decentralised electrification, improved crop yield, and thus increased farmers’ income. Compared to traditional utility-scale solar, however, agrivoltaics generally entail higher installation costs and material requirements, lower energy generation, and thus increased cost of electricity production. Drawing on William Kapp’s theory of social costs and ecological political economy, this article examines agrivoltaics developments within the latest EU-level policy initiatives on energy, agriculture, and climate change. Despite room for optimism regarding the comparative advantages of agrivoltaics, the findings reconcile these benefits with multiple trade-offs inherent in alleged ‘win–win’ solutions. Addressing the dual objectives of energy and agricultural transitions, the uncritical deployment of agrivoltaics risks perpetuating the prevailing ‘cheaper food paradigm’, characterised by capital and energy-intensive agricultural techniques, trade globalisation, wage compression, and the displacement and/or deferral of environmental harm. Additionally, rent-seeking behaviour among landowners leasing to energy developers could inflate agricultural land prices, thus exacerbating land ownership intensification and the financialisation of European farmland. This article concludes by advancing a few avenues to reinvest the rental income of agrivoltaics to facilitate the transition to agroecological farming practices.

Is Blockchain a game-changer for social currency systems? Some reflections in light of the experience of Moneda PAR in Argentina - Sebastian Valdecantos; Ricardo Orzi; Raphaël Porcherot; Federico José Camargo (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Social currencies can make a valuable contribution to sustainability as they strengthen solidarity markets, a specific exchange practice that enhances the resilience of their surrounding environmental, social and human systems. Until now, the need to secure trust in a currency has been a major challenge for social currency initiatives not backed by the State. The emergence of Blockchain, which offers security, transparency and auditability to currencies and transactions it supports, seemingly circumvents this issue. This raises the question that this paper seeks to address: is Blockchain a game-changer for bottom-up solidarity economy initiatives? The methodological approach draws on a multidimensional conceptualisation of trust that recognises three components: ethical, hierarchical and methodical trust. It uses Moneda PAR, an Argentinian Blockchain-based social currency, as a case study and draws on use data, participant surveys and direct observation by the authors as action researchers to explore social currency and solidarity economy development in relation to currency performance on each dimension of trust. Findings from the case show that despite strengthening hierarchical and methodical trust, Blockchain needs to be articulated with additional market-building strategies to be a true game-changer in the development of social currency systems.

Limiting money: redesigning the artifact that shapes modern people - Alf Hornborg (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The transdisciplinary argument in this article is that the social and ecological unsustainability of modern, globalized capitalism ultimately derives from the design of its central artifact: what Polanyi called all- or general-purpose money. The notion of a singular measure of economic value is a peculiar cultural conception that is inherently at odds with physical reality, yet it pervades modern economic thought and practice as if it were immutable. To transcend the political impasse of economic globalization, a complementary national currency (CC) exclusively for local use could distinguish a sphere of exchange and special-purpose currency for basic needs from a global sphere of more remote exchange-values. To avoid the pitfalls and failures of earlier experiments with local currencies, such a CC would require the support of national authorities, the specified objective of sustainable consumption and production, and systematic efforts to provide citizens and entrepreneurs with ample incentives to utilize it. In combining the concept of a CC with that of a universal basic income (UBI), the reform would allow their advantages to complement each other, joining the generalized scale of UBI with the potential of politically influencing consumption patterns that is inherent in CC. An essential difference in relation to earlier experiments would be that the reach of the CC would not be defined in terms of the geographical location of retailers but in terms of the derivation, relative to the consumer, of the products and services into which it could be converted. Although no such system yet exists, this should not stop us from imagining its possibilities.

Designing solidarity cryptocurrency: a path to foster borderless local development - Bruno Henrique Sanches; Trícia Karla Lacerda Moraes; Teresa Rachael Santos; Adrian Kemmer Cernev (Sustainability Science, 2025)

The ecor as global special purpose money: towards a green international monetary system to finance sustainable and just transformation - Nicolás Aguila; Paula Haufe; Joscha Wullweber (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Countries from the Global South face significant challenges to finance sustainable and just transformation. These challenges primarily stem from the hierarchical character of the current international monetary system, which requires Global South countries to obtain US dollars to finance imports of green goods, services, and technologies that they cannot (yet) produce, but require for the sustainable transformation. To overcome this hurdle, we propose the foundation of a green international monetary system with a Green World Central Bank (GWCB) at its centre. The GWCB would be allowed to create its own unit of account, which in our model we refer to as the “ecor”. The ecor would be a global special purpose money similar to Keynes’ ‘bancor’. Ecors would be created by the GWCB in the act of lending, and credited to the GWCB accounts of countries to finance imports needed to combat the climate crisis and advance the process of sustainable and just transformation in their societies and economies. Ecors transferred by deficit countries to surplus countries would only be able to be used within the system, leading to an expansionary adjustment of international imbalances. In this way, the amount of ecors would adjust elastically to the real demands for sustainable change and would not be limited by reserves or by funding conditions from private finance. This would create an international monetary system capable of responding appropriately and flexibly to ease the financing needs of countries around the world, thus enabling them, to effectively address the climate crisis on a globally just basis.

Money and the ecological turn: lessons from alternative currencies - Jérôme Blanc (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Design principles for sustainable community currency projects - Eduardo H. Diniz; Marcelo Henrique de Araujo; Mario Aquino Alves; Lauro Gonzalez (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Community currencies (CCs) are alternative forms of money usually issued and managed by citizens, NGOs and companies as well as local public administrations. Used to trade goods and services in limited territories or among a certain community, CCs are composed of symbolic, cultural, and social dimensions and fully immersed in particular economic and institutional contexts. Despite the increasing adoption of CCs, the discussion on guiding principles and values to address their purposes, particularly in relation to environmental sustainability issues is still scarce in the literature. Given this gap, this paper relies on the following research question: what are the design principles to be considered for community currency projects oriented to sustainable development goals? We follow the design science research paradigms to describe the design principles of a CC project. We analyze the institutional and economic context in which they are implemented, the goals for what they were created, the processes and mechanisms to rely upon their operation, and how they are evaluated according to their specific goals and to their implications to the sustainable development goals. It is important to emphasize that in this article we focus on improving the understanding of CC projects and what should be considered in their evaluation, however not to the extent on how they should be implemented. The design principles framework presented in this paper specifies guidelines to discuss principles to be considered within a range of different possibilities of diversified CC implementation strategies.

Special on purpose: complementary currencies in the hierarchy of money - Christopher Olk (Sustainability Science, 2025)
No money is universally acceptable. What distinguishes special-purpose monies (SPMs) from national currencies is not the fact of geographical or institutional constraints on their acceptability as such, but the intentional imposition of such constraints as a design priority. This article integrates SPMs into the theoretical framework of the credit theory of money and proposes a novel typology of complementary currencies. In this view, any money is part of a global hierarchy of credit monies. The position of each money in that hierarchy depends on its liquidity, including the degree of commensurability and convertibility, and on the degree of sovereignty that backs it, including aspects of sovereignty that are based on monopoly power and social norms that have no necessary link to states. The position of national currencies in the global hierarchy can be assessed along the dimensions of liquidity and sovereignty. Along the same lines, four types of SPMs can be distinguished. Non-commensurable SPMs backed by some form of sovereignty and connected to public provisioning systems appear to be a more promising instrument than private convertible currencies for supporting effective sustainability transitions.

Catalyzing change: a literature review on the implementation of the Nature Futures Framework - Sana Okayasu; Jan J. Kuiper; Ghassan Halouani; HyeJin Kim; Brian W. Miller; América Paz Durán; Angelique Vermeer; Machteld Schoolenberg; Shizuka Hashimoto; Carolyn Lundquist (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The Nature Futures Framework (NFF), developed under the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), serves as a catalyst for advancing new scenarios and models focused on biodiversity and ecosystem services within the broader research community. In particular, the framework facilitates the development of scenarios and models that can help guide change processes toward desirable futures for nature and people. This paper assesses 31 studies that have engaged with the NFF since its introduction in 2020, aiming to identify which research areas have been addressed, and where development needs remain. The applications exhibit a large diversity in terms of locations, spatial scales, methods, outputs, and stakeholder involvement. The most common use of the framework has been in developing visions and scenarios. Nearly all studies engaged with diverse values of nature through the framework’s fundamental value perspectives: ‘ Nature for Society ’, ‘ Nature for Natur e’, and ‘ Nature as Culture / One with Nature ’. While the framework is generally perceived as useful, challenges remain in integrating the NFF across multiple scales and fully incorporating plural values, particularly in measuring relational aspects and avoiding Western-centric biases. Future research priorities include developing integrated, quantitative studies and exploring transformative pathways to enhance the framework's effectiveness in driving sustainable outcomes. Overall, the growing body of work using the NFF provides a strong foundation for distilling best practices, facilitating large-scale applications, and achieving the framework's objectives.

The perspective of youth: envisioning transformative pathways and desirable futures for people and nature - Thomas M. Schmitt; Juliette Aminian-Biquet; Polina Blinova; Yohana G. Jimenez; Lider Sinav; Hana Vašková; Ana Sofia Lorda Dumont; Pham Trung Kien; Vinamra Mathur; Brenda Mwale; Deign Frolley Soriano; Nopparat Anantaprayoon; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This paper examines the pathways to desirable nature futures as envisioned by 22 young people from all United Nations regions and diverse cultural backgrounds who participated in the second edition of the IPBES Youth workshop (2022). The workshop employed the Three Horizons framework and the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to describe the plurality of youth visions for desirable nature futures and transformative pathways to achieve these visions. Based on the outcomes of the workshop, we conducted a qualitative content analysis categorizing the ideas and quantitatively assessed commonalities and differences among workshop groups, which were based on the NFF perspectives (nature for nature, nature for society, nature as culture, and a group in between perspectives). There were important differences in the visions and pathways articulated by the groups, but also commonalities, such as the importance of governance, community-based approaches, and education for achieving desirable nature futures. We also discuss the importance of flexibility in the NFF to accommodate diverse perspectives and involvement of youth in shaping global sustainability agendas. While many ideas raised by young people during this workshop align with existing conservation narratives, the study reveals the need to foster new and innovative ideas to drive transformative change that is sensitive to diverse contexts, histories, and experiences.

Localizing visions of desirable futures: applying the Nature Futures Framework to the Baroro Watershed in the Philippines - Shruti Ashish Lahoti; Laizha Lynn Lomente-Gacutan; Rex Victor Cruz; Pia Montoya; Angelica Magpantay; Farah Sevilla; Mesfin Sahle; Juan Pulhin; Shizuka Hashimoto; Osamu Saito (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emphasizes the need for innovative approaches to foster harmonious coexistence with nature, particularly in managing critical resources such as watersheds. This study applies the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to integrate diverse value perspectives on nature into sustainable watershed management, addressing a gap in traditional approaches that often overlook stakeholder plurality. Using a three-step approach—combining literature reviews, key informant interviews, and workshops with experts and local stakeholders—we applied the NFF in the Baroro Watershed (Philippines) to assess current pressures, envision desirable futures, and identify strategies for transitioning toward them. Our results highlight socio-economic, institutional, and demographic changes as major indirect drivers contributing to direct pressures such as climate change, land use changes, and pollution, leading to significant challenges in managing the Baroro Watershed. We present three visions of desirable futures, each reflecting different value perspectives on nature: Sustainable Forest Protection and Restoration (nature for nature), Sustainable Farming Practices and Judicious Growth (nature for society), and Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Practices (nature as culture/one with nature). We then analyze the current opportunities and enablers for achieving these desired watershed futures, addressing relevant drivers of change. The study illustrates the complex connections between drivers of change and their implications for desirable futures. By serving as a guiding lens that integrates ecological, societal, and cultural dimensions, the NFF enabled the assessment of synergies and trade-offs across different visions and pathways, presented in the Discussion. Our findings provide insights into improving governance structures, enhancing policy alignment, and fostering inclusive decision-making processes. We conclude with recommendations for integrating spatial data and maintaining ongoing stakeholder engagement to refine these strategies and assess their impact over time. These insights enhance localized resource management and contribute to global CBD efforts toward harmonious coexistence with nature.

Financial value regime alignment and Mozambique’s heterogeneous energy landscape - Idalina Baptista; Lorraine Howe; Carlos Shenga (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 of universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030 will require an unprecedented amount of private sector finance and development assistance. To this end, African utilities and governments are asked to put substantive efforts into aligning themselves with the demands of the dominant financial value regime of ‘the Wall Street Consensus’ (Gabor in Dev Change 52:429–459, 2021). Using the case of Mozambique, this article examines the strategies deployed by state actors to align themselves with this regime and the implications this has for the country’s energy landscape, particularly in terms of environmental sustainability and social justice. It examines how two of the regime’s principles—creditworthiness and bankability—permeate new legislative efforts in the on-grid and off-grid sectors, organizational structures, accounting and project management practices, attempts at disciplining workers and consumers, and the broader political economy of Mozambique. It also discusses how such efforts have perpetuated a fragmented energy landscape that does not always satisfy the needs of energy poor populations or facilitate decarbonization. The article concludes with a discussion of the relevance of our findings to crafting environmentally sustainable and socially just pathways for Africa’s electrification. The article draws on the authors’ ongoing field research in Mozambique, including the qualitative analysis of existing policies and of eight in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key informants (energy operators, donors and implementing partners) undertaken in late 2022.

Coastal encounters with electrical hybridity: Karpowership in Africa’s energy transition - Liza Rose Cirolia; Charlotte Ray; Rifquah Hendricks (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Karpowership’s large floating vessels provide electricity to millions of people in Africa’s coastal urban centers. Both the technology choice and the business practices of the family-run company are controversial. Not only do the ships use highly polluting heavy fuels, but there are also persuasive allegations of corruption and predatory practices. Extending this critique, we read powerships through the lens of both energy transitions and electrical hybridity, focusing attention on the justifying logics and negotiating efforts of African energy actors. We assemble an archive of the use of these ships in Africa and deep dive into three cases: Sierra Leone; The Gambia; and South Africa to make three interlinked arguments. First, powership deployment in Africa reflects electrical hybridization, a mode of development whereby modular, decentralized technologies operate in service of the established network and utility. Short-term augmentation is taking place alongside piecemeal efforts to enhance energy security and improve the energy mix. Second, against the backdrop of deep uncertainties and recursive injustices, this hybridization is seen by African state actors to have high cost, but low risk, mitigating concerns over infrastructural lock-in or elite grid defecting. Finally, and despite claims that African states are at the mercy of this private company, we map how these terms of engagement are challenged through a wide range of tactics, specific to their respective context. In conclusion, we argue that Karpowership is enrolled in a hybrid, speculative, and additive project, whereby serving the urban network remains central to the ability of the state to deliver on both diverse imperatives.

Participatory downscaling of global SSP–RCP scenarios to local fisheries social–ecological systems - Adrien Chevallier; Elise Banton; Fabien Moullec; Alaia Morell; Clea Abello; Ignacio Pita-Vaca; Myron A. Peck; Bruno Ernande; Yunne-Jai Shin (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Disentangling the entangled in productive ways: modelling social–ecological systems from a process-relational perspective - Maja Schlüter; Tilman Hertz; Anja Klein; Nanda Wijermans (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Process-relational perspectives have been proposed as new ways of conceptualising, analysing and engaging with social–ecological systems (SES) that are capable of dealing with intertwinedness and complexity. The application of PR perspectives in SES research, however, remains challenging and largely conceptual. We explore the possibilities of combining process-relational thought with agent-based modelling as a methodology for thinking with and exploring the becoming/emergence of SES. We call it relation-based modelling (RBM) and develop it through modelling the emergence/becoming of a virtual small-scale fishery. RBM focuses attention towards the apparatus, i.e. the material and discursive practices that shape the model structure which then provides the conditions for the emergence of fishery assemblages in a virtual, simulated world. Our attempt to produce a model from a process-relational perspective supported critical reflection of our assumptions about fisheries and agent-based modelling, particularly with respect to questioning common ways of dissecting the world that hinder understanding their intertwinedness and dynamism. Analysis of simulation results and our reflections about the apparatus together reveal how organisation at different levels, from the arrangement of practices that shape the design of the model to the arrangements of elements in the virtual world of the simulation influence the emergence of a virtual fishery. We reflect on the tensions we encountered when disentangling the entangled and formalising process-relational ideas and conceptualisations in the model and the learning and transformations that occurred through this process. A process-relational practice of modelling can open up possibilities to think differently about SES and change the way we theorise and act within them.

Climate and biodiversity perceptions amid the European energy crisis: shifting social media narratives - Anna Hausmann; Tuomas Väisänen; Tuuli Toivonen; Gonzalo Cortés-Capano (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Public support for addressing the sustainability crisis is crucial for mainstreaming environmental issues into policymaking. Recently, escalating impacts of an energy crisis have sparked debates over European energy governance, influencing policymaking on climate and biodiversity goals. Understanding how public attention towards climate and biodiversity is mediated by social media during crises can provide insights into the processes of public opinion formation. We investigated the attention patterns, narrative shifts, and sentiment regarding climate and biodiversity concerning European energy governance on X (formerly Twitter), between 2021 and 2023. We employed the issue–attention cycle framework and combined quantitative methods with qualitative thematic analysis. We found limited attention on climate and biodiversity in European energy governance, suggesting low engagement with the interconnected dimensions of the crisis. Climate and biodiversity issues were mainly linked to energy governance in relation to the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. Attention fluctuated over time following three waves of salient themes: the unfolding energy crisis, geopolitical instability, and socio-economic concerns. Geopolitical events elicited a sense of urgency for accelerating the energy transition. However, socio-economic events (high energy prices) aroused critical views towards the transition, reflecting emerging discourses against decarbonization in the EU. Limited attention to climate and biodiversity on social media may reinforce the perception that these issues are unrelated to energy governance, driving public support towards uncoordinated, even contradictory, sectorial policies. The construction of saliency around polarized framing on social media may push opinions against environmental policies on energy governance, challenging the reconciliation of environmental, economic, and social imperatives of sustainability.

Sustainability assessment and intervention scenarios in a transnational watershed socioenvironmental system - Edgar J. González; Alejandro Alcudia-Aguilar; Claudia Coronel; Fernanda Serna; Pavel E. Popoca-Cruz; María Zorrilla; Julia Carabias (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The assessment of the sustainability status of territories is a prerequisite for the development of public policy strategies to be implemented on them aimed at attaining established sustainability goals. A socioenvironmental systems perspective, in which economic, social and environmental aspects constituting these territories and their interactions between them are considered, allows for a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of these systems. Given the complexity of such systems, sets of indicators are required to simplify and quantify them. Here, we developed a model of the dynamics of the socioenvironmental system associated with the Usumacinta River basin (URB), a 77,000 km 2 area shared by Guatemala and Mexico. We fed this model with information from a system of 51 sustainability indicators and modeled the relationships between these indicators, as well as developed indices to visualize the sustainability status of these components. This allowed us to evaluate the impact of different scenarios of change in the indicators of public policy on the entire URB system. We determine that the URB displays a good state of its natural component and of the impact human activities have in the territory; however, components associated with the human activities themselves, their drivers, the social condition and the human assets displayed differences in their sustainability status between countries. Concerning the evaluation of scenarios of changes in the magnitude of the public policy indicators, we established that Ecosystem Services payment increases the overall sustainability of the territory. We conclude that both environmental protection and social investment should be considered if socioenvironmental sustainability is to be attained.

Systematic review of Doughnut Economics from 2012 to 2024 - Qinglong Shao (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Institutional logics as an object of change: the experiences of a water organization using design thinking for climate adaptation in a multi-stakeholder process - Florian Goldschmeding; René Kemp; Véronique Vasseur; Christian Scholl (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In the search for solutions to complex challenges posed by climate change and sustainability transitions, organizations often turn to innovative approaches and new cognitive frames. Particularly in the public sector, however, entrenched institutional logics often impede progress toward novel solutions. This paper explores how a public organization in the Dutch water sector navigates competing and sometimes conflicting frames and institutional logics through design-thinking. The object of study is a 6-month project initiated by a regional water authority in response to a severe flooding in 2021. The project aimed to develop and reimagine instruments for inclusive and climate-adaptive water management in collaboration with diverse actors. Based on participant observation and qualitative interviews, we analyze a series of design-thinking workshops where diverse stakeholders co-created tools for climate-adaptive water management. The findings disclose the existence of significant conflicts between the frames and institutional logics and offer details on how these were addressed through repeated stakeholder interaction and institutional work. We found that individuals showed varied responses to the emerging institutional logics, and that dominant institutional logics were diversely interpreted by different actors within the organization. Our research shows how iterative, participatory design methods can help actors temporarily shift institutional logics, but also reveals persistent challenges in achieving enduring changes to dominant institutions.

Graduate student perspectives on opportunities and approaches for supporting transdisciplinary research and education - Ryan S. Naylor; Marissa W. Kopp; Julissa I. Irizarry; W. Eliott Foust; Zachary A. Goldberg; Melanie E. Jones; Olivia Spencer; Ledeebari D. Banuna; Sadie Sharma (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Are scientific assessments and academic culture impeding transformative science? - Matthias Kaiser; Peter Gluckman (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This discussion paper addresses the question of why much of our current science is not meeting the needs and societal expectations in addressing many of the complex and ‘wicked problems’ of our times. Many of these are encompassed in the sustainability agenda which is clearly progressing unsatisfactorily. We argue that a widespread transition within the institutions of science to promote transdisciplinary research is needed and that such a move requires also a change in the perception and culture of science. Dominant funding practices, evaluation criteria and assessment metrics are major impediments for a broader engagement in transdisciplinary research. We indicate the kinds of institutional changes that would be needed to address the situation and move toward a better production of actionable knowledge.

Achieving net-zero agriculture in Africa: perspective on policies, challenges, and opportunities - Tersur Theophilus Akpensuen; M. Jordana Rivero (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Africa, with 55 Member States and over 1 billion people, is projected to nearly double its population to 2.5 billion by 2050, presenting both opportunities and challenges for sustainable development. Agriculture employs 65% of the labour force and contributes 32% to gross domestic product. The aim of this perspective is to highlight the challenges and opportunities of achieving net-zero agriculture in Africa while proffering appropriate recommendations. The primary issues are how extreme weather events affect food security and how to cut emissions from livestock farming as well as rice cultivation and fertilizer usage alongside evaluating current policies that support climate-smart agricultural practices. Africa needs to investigate how its expanding young population along with research and innovation can advance the move towards net-zero agricultural practices. Challenges of insufficient data availability together with ineffective policy enforcement, financial barriers, and limited awareness, decreasing precipitation levels coupled with regional conflicts and population migration hinder progress in achieving net-zero agriculture on the continent. However, Africa possesses substantial opportunities through its extensive arable land combined with its youthful workforce and renewable energy capabilities. Africa needs to obtain climate funds and strengthen regional partnerships while enhancing climate information services and creating inclusive and gender-responsive policies to address these issues. Investing in innovative technologies alongside renewable energy sources and crops resistant to climate change stands as an essential strategy. The implementation of early warning systems along with the development of alternative livelihoods will enhance efforts towards sustainable management of climate-induced migration. Africa will develop a climate-resilient agricultural system by confronting existing challenges while capitalizing on emerging opportunities.

Exploring the local nexus between human development and environmental sustainability: a case study from Colombia - Diego Valbuena; Daniel Gaitán-Cremaschi; Marcela Cely-Santos; Jose M. Ochoa-Quintero (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Evaluating the local nexus between human development (HD) and environmental sustainability (ES) can guide and inform policy and planning. This evaluation is particularly relevant in tropical countries, characterised by interactions among high biodiversity, monetary poverty, social inequalities, and environmental degradation. The aim of this paper is to analyse the HD–ES nexus across various municipalities in Colombia, situating the analysis within broader socio-economic structural patterns. We investigate the local diversity of the HD–ES nexus by creating a typology of municipalities, using selected and available socio-economic and environmental indicators through the combination of principal component analysis and non-hierarchical clustering analysis. Subsequently, we compare these municipal typologies against broader socio-economic structural variables by using regression analyses to better contextualise the diversity of local HD–ES nexus. We identify five distinct HD–ES types, including ‘Developed Degraded’, ‘Moderate Degraded’, ‘Poor Degraded’, ‘Moderate Modified’, and ‘Marginalised Preserved’. The location, characteristics, and context of these types are closely associated with the main geographical regions in Colombia, which also reflect the major settlement and development processes, including demographics, economic structure, accessibility, local government capacity, and armed conflict. We discuss how this diversity reflects the complexity in the interactions within this nexus, and the necessity for more targeted policy and planning to monitor and address these challenges. We suggest potential avenues for future research in balancing local human development and environmental sustainability in tropical countries.

Exploring the impacts of global change on small-scale fisheries: expanding the use of I-ADApT as a decision support tool - Bhabishya Khaniya; Prateep Kumar Nayak; Alida Bundy (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Transformative capacities for navigating system change: a framework for sustainability research and practice - Christopher J. Orr; Sarah Burch (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Linking sea and land systems through food web models and value chains: a portrait of the Ebro Delta (NW Mediterranean Sea) - Miquel Ortega; Elena Lloret-Lloret; Marta Coll (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In various parts of the world, the fisheries sector is undergoing a rapid transition due to a combination of ecological and economic stressors. In this context, there is increasing interest in using integrated ecological–economic tools to support ecosystem-based fisheries practices within a value chain framework, aiming to reduce ecological impacts while ensuring socioeconomic benefits. Our study integrates a food web model with a value chain model for an area of the Mediterranean Sea. This case study may provide valuable insights for decision-makers: (1) it allows the calculation of indicators that go beyond the evaluation of species and fisheries incomes, which are relevant for assessing fisheries management; (2) it offers a more comprehensive perspective on what should be considered priority fisheries species and their key characteristics; and (3) it supports the identification of key actors of the fisheries value chain and generates pertinent information to use in vertically integrated decision-making initiatives.

Thou shalt not take the name of bioeconomy in vain - Mario Giampietro; Silvio Funtowicz; Sandra G. F. Bukkens (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In this paper, we show that the characteristics of complex adaptive systems support the original interpretation of the bioeconomy of Georgescu-Roegen: the current use of natural resources by industrialized societies is incompatible with the regeneration processes of ecological systems. Elaborating the concept of societal identity, using a biosemiotics reading of the social theory of Luhmann, we show that the current social identity is sustained by implausible sociotechnical imaginaries, including the European Union’s interpretation of the bioeconomy as a panacea for green growth. We argue that the current widespread perception of polycrisis is a sign that, on the tangible side of biosemiotic process, social practices urgently need change. On the notional side, however, society is (still) incapable of relinquishing the set of sociotechnical imaginaries grounded in the American and Cartesian dreams (the promethean ideology) firmly locked in its collective memory. This incongruity has produced information disorder in the sustainability discourse. We conclude that the EU endorsement of the concept of the circular (bio)economy as a strategy for perpetual economic growth decoupled from resource use represents a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo through the endorsement of an integrated set of noble lies.

Bridging the adaptation finance gap: the role of nature-based solutions for climate resilience - Gowhar Meraj; Shizuka Hashimoto (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The Adaptation Gap Report 2024 has highlighted a critical shortfall in adaptation finance, with an estimated gap between US$187 billion and US$359 billion annually, far exceeding the current public finance flows, which reached about US$27.5 billion in 2022. This review paper emphasizes the urgency of bridging the adaptation finance gap to address the escalating challenges posed by climate change, particularly in developing regions. While it is essential to direct adaptation finance toward established priorities, including areas such as infrastructure and health, this paper advocates for greater emphasis on nature-based solutions (NbS) such as ecosystem services (ES), disaster risk reduction (DRR), and sustainable land management (SLM). NbS offers cost-effective, long-term solutions that complement existing strategies and can play a critical role in enhancing resilience, reducing future adaptation costs, and delivering critical co-benefits for biodiversity and livelihoods. Drawing on recent data and emerging financing mechanisms such as green bonds and debt-for-climate swaps, we aim to propose actionable strategies for mobilizing resources at scale. By allocating adaptation financing across these priority areas, there are potentially better possibilities to strengthen climate resilience, protect vulnerable populations, and support a sustainable and equitable adaptation process.

Nothing about us without us: harnessing local voices in shaping community-based adaptation in the Pacific - Hannah Turner; Briony Rogers; Sarah Kneebone; Diego Ramirez; Matthew French; Mere Jane Sawailau; Filise Volavola; Sholyn Baran; Kelera Matavesi; Orlando Newton; Maraia Batiota Luveniyali; Autiko Tela; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)
As global temperatures rise, so does the frequency and intensity of severe weather events and their risks to people and assets. These risks are especially acute for Pacific Islanders in urban informal settlements, given their socio-economic vulnerabilities and limited political influence. There is growing awareness that national adaptation strategies may not fully meet the needs of these vulnerable communities, leading to a focus on community-led adaptation. However, these approaches are in their infancy and have been criticised for fostering paternalistic tendencies, prompting calls for external institutions to facilitate rather than direct community initiatives. This research utilises Photovoice, a method recognised for its cultural relevance and ability to amplify Indigenous and marginalised voices. It involves 42 households in Fiji's Greater Suva Urban Area, using resident-led photography and interviews to explore community-based flood adaptation. Through ethnographic content analysis and inductive coding, the study captures residents’ experiences and strategies, identifying over 31 unique adaptation measures and underscoring the importance of resources, social networks, traditional knowledge, beliefs, and leadership in enhancing adaptive capacity. The findings demonstrate the complexity of factors influencing adaptation, with resource availability and social capital being crucial. The study advocates for adaptive processes that are community driven, calling for a shift in research and funding to support these programmes in a flexible, responsive, and inclusive manner. It also highlights the need to understand community dynamics to prevent paternalistic practices and integrate local insights effectively, ensuring community self-determination in adaptation efforts.

Comprehensive assessment instruments for place-based sustainable agriculture: a scoping review - Rebecca Voisin; Stephanie Godrich; David Blake; Ros Sambell; Saranne Herrington; Janine Joyce; Pierre Horwitz; Amanda Devine (Sustainability Science, 2025)
A rapid transformation to sustainable agricultural production systems is necessary, requiring on-farm monitoring and measurements of key agricultural sustainability indicators. While many assessment methods for agricultural sustainability incorporate a three-pillar model of sustainability: environment, economic, and social, a step beyond this is required to support both human and planetary health. This review takes the position that a more nuanced, yet broader framing of agricultural sustainability is warranted, and identifies the measurement of additional pillars including health and nutrition, production, and responsible governance, plus overlooked aspects including Indigenous cultures. A peer-reviewed and grey literature search was conducted identifying articles ( n = 8) discussing comprehensive, more than three-pillar, on-farm sustainability assessment instruments ( n = 7). These seven instruments were analysed against an a priori framework of adaptability, modularity, practicality and scalability. Also explored was the usage of the broader sustainability pillars and common themes within the literature. Limited literature was found which encompassed the complexity of the requirements for measuring agricultural sustainability on-farm. A scalable and practical approach to the construction and use of on-farm agricultural sustainability assessment instruments is nascent. This review recommends the examination of instruments in a participatory and transdisciplinary manner to ensure effective operationalisation, acknowledge place-based nuance, and support farmers as potential end-users. Moving forward, the application and design of sustainable agriculture assessment instruments needs to encompass the full range of externalities created by agricultural production systems to actualise sustainability.

Social–ecological traps in agroforestry and the role of law - Marina Klimke; Tobias Plieninger; Cathrin Zengerling (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Agroforestry is an example of a social–ecological system that was once common across Europe, but has largely disappeared with the intensification of agriculture. Although agroforestry law has been shown to be an obstacle to the adoption of agroforestry by farmers, little is known about the implementation of agroforestry law at the local level and its interaction with other social–ecological feedback processes. In targeting this research gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with farmers, non-governmental organisations and administration in three case study regions across Germany. To understand the interaction of agroforestry law with other social–ecological feedback processes, we adopted the perspective of social–ecological traps (SET). We find that (1) agriculture in Germany is currently at a crossroad, where farmers are playing the role of pioneers and adopting agroforestry as a new farming practice to escape prevailing path-dependent processes. Moreover, we show that (2) agroforestry law is closely intertwined with other social–ecological feedback processes and plays a dual role in promoting and hindering agroforestry in the case study regions. Our study may inform the further revision of the European and national laws and highlights the need to take a holistic approach to the law.

Potential integration of mātauranga Māori in sustainable Construction 4.0 adoption - Aflah Alamsah Dani; Krishanu Roy; Mahonri Owen; Fleur Palmer; Troy Coyle (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Roles of researchers in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research: a reflection tool - Benjamin Hofmann; Hanna Salomon; Sabine Hoffmann (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research is increasingly called for and supported to promote sustainable transformation through knowledge co-production, knowledge integration, and solution development. The paper explores what is needed to support researchers in reflecting on their new roles in ITD research. We introduce a reflection tool that makes the growing literature on researchers’ roles in sustainability science applicable to ITD projects. Its design is based on the arguments that each researcher can have several roles within one research project and that focusing on a few key roles increases clarity compared to differentiating many specialized roles. The tool consists of (1) a researcher survey that operationalizes six prominent roles (traditional scientist, self-reflexive scientist, knowledge integrator, knowledge broker, process facilitator, and change agent), (2) a visualization of role profiles from the survey, and (3) a set of reflection questions on related opportunities, challenges, and coping strategies on individual and project level. We empirically applied the tool in two ITD research projects focused on sustainable food production and water and forest ecosystem management. Comparative application of the tool yielded diverse role profiles of researchers in both projects, with different patterns for senior and junior researchers as well as natural and social scientists. The reflection produced a collection of opportunities, challenges, and coping strategies that corroborates and extends insights from ITD literature. We discuss how the tool triggers multi-dimensional reflection on roles (individual and project level, role combinations, self-perception and external perception) and outline opportunities for further strengthening such reflection in ITD research.

Does the bioeconomy literature provide a balanced view of sustainability? - Julia Lessa Feitosa Virgolino; Nicholas M. Holden (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Bioeconomy has emerged as a route to sustainability, but it is not inherently sustainable. Given the ambition of bioeconomy policies around the world, it is crucial for scientific literature to offer balanced evidence about sustainable practices across environmental, social, and economic dimensions. This study analysed bioeconomy research over the last 50 years to identify which aspects of sustainability have been prioritized and overlooked. The alignment of bioeconomy literature with the ‘ Aspirational Principles and Criteria for a Sustainable Bioeconomy ’ defined by FAO was assessed to understand if there is a balance of evidence among environmental, social, and economic interests, or whether specific sustainability considerations are emphasized. Eight critical research gaps emerged: bioeconomy impact on food security, water usage, inclusive consultation, land rights, policy coherence, system resilience, risk assessment, and sustainable consumption practices.

The sustainability science approach in sub-Saharan Africa: key lessons from five case studies - Juliana Chaves-Chaparro; Carlos Aguirre-Bastos; José Andrés Domínguez-Gómez (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 sustainable development objectives (SDGs) with goals to be reached by 2030. However, as amply reported in the scientific and development literature, none of the goals are on track to be achieved globally. This is particularly true for sub-Saharan Africa. Under a complex socio-environmental context, it is argued that major transformations and new approaches demand a stronger science–policy–society interface. Given the dynamic, multi- and interdisciplinary nature of the research for and on SDGs, there is a broad consensus that sustainability science is one of the instrumental approaches to their implementation. Based on sociological grounds, and in a framework of innovation systems and knowledge production, this paper aims to analyze the main challenges of five sub-Saharan African countries regarding innovation and knowledge production within the sustainability science approach. Based on primary data arising from field interviews and focus groups, and combined with desk research and bibliometric studies, the paper presents differences and commonalities among the country studies. These are used toward the definition of a set of five principles to guide the uptake of the sustainable science approach in the subregion in the discussion section: fostering intra-regional cooperation; multi- and interdisciplinary research; involving other stakeholders and knowledge systems; reinforcing the science–policy interface; and the evaluation data and methods.

Achieving sustainability transformations for multi-species justice: assessing the potential of diverse legal pathways and societal struggles - Stacy Banwell; Valerie Nelson; Fatimazahra Dehbi (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This article explores the transformative potential of legal pathways and societal struggles to conserve biodiversity and achieve sustainability transformations toward multi-species justice. Exploring contemporary discourse on sustainability transformations, including emerging attention to relationality and critical perspectives, we analyse a range of legal instruments and measures to assess their transformative potential drawing upon their capacity to overcome rigid Cartesian dichotomies between humans and nature, to challenge capitalist accumulation imperatives and hence to contribute to a new societal sustainability goal of pluriversal, multi-species justice. Ranging from mainstream approaches in existing biodiversity and environmental instruments and supply chain instruments, such as environmental and deforestation due diligence, to newly emerging, more radical propositions of Rights of Nature, Ecocide and Restorative Justice, we review existing literature and empirical cases to interrogate and reflect upon their transformative potential, and to identify potentially effective combinations of socio-legal pathways.

Transforming local governance: using system leverage points to conceptualize sustainability transformations - Rita Nerland; Gisle Solbu; Kristin Hansen; Heidi Rapp Nilsen (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Despite the global call for sustainability transformations, researchers and practitioners struggle to achieve this goal. One promising avenue is to use concepts from systems theory, particularly system leverage points, to understand and accelerate transformation processes. This paper addresses how public decision-makers and politicians at different levels of local government understand sustainability transformations and the implications of this understanding for their governance. Furthermore, we investigate how the leverage point framework can aid in conceptualizing local governments’ transformation processes. The empirical basis is a series of focus group interviews with public decision-makers and politicians in Norway. Using system leverage points as a conceptual boundary object between transformation theory and practical sustainability interventions, we find that these interview subjects are addressing the urgency of the transformative change needed and view the gap between knowledge and action as a prominent challenge. We discuss and introduce the notion of a “space of leverage”—reflecting that sustainability interventions act in an interlinked space of possibility that spans sectors and governance levels. On this basis, we propose three recommendations for governing deliberate transformations: (1) establishing new means for collaboration that integrate system perspectives; (2) establishing a shared sustainability vision across government administration and politics; and (3) evaluating the current management system, emphasizing system leverage points. Our study responds to the calls for research that engages with the “how” of transformations and elucidates how the leverage point framework can be used to understand a current transformation process at the local level.

Socio-ecological conflict in Quilombola territory: land titling and ecosystem health - Tabata Berg; Emilio Acevedo Nieto; Suzi Moura; Matheus Souza; Zulmira Maria Lucio; Graziele e Silva; Julianne Meisner (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Heterogeneous infrastructure and governance of low-carbon transition in Qingdao, China - Minsi Liu; Kevin Lo (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Nairobi’s batteryscape: everyday electricity storage, energy justice, and infrastructural heterogeneity in urban Africa - Moritz Kasper (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Renewable energy transitions, technological advances, and geopolitical disruptions have brought various forms of energy storage to the forefront of sustainability and infrastructure debates. Conversely, the socio-technical intricacies of everyday electricity storage by urban residents have received less attention in these discussions, although batteries have become an essential part of everyday life, especially in cities with heterogeneous infrastructure landscapes. In Nairobi, for example, batteries have become quotidian artefacts that form the basis of broader battery landscapes composed of different batteries and their materialities, idiosyncratic household electricity dispositifs , a broader landscape of private and public actors, and (lack of) regulation and governance. By proposing and using the notion of the batteryscape for these arrangements, this paper elaborates on the infrastructural significance of everyday household electricity storage for sustainable and just energy infrastructures. More specifically, it addresses issues of energy justice—largely, but not only, in terms of distributive injustices—and the heterogenization of individual as well as citywide electricity arrangements. Reflecting on limited state regulation and governance of domestic battery use and disposal in Nairobi, a nuanced reading of ongoing, battery-enabled energy transitions with their micro-materialities and everyday practices in African cities is called for to make pragmatic proposals for sustainability transitions, urban infrastructure planning, and the governance of both.

Local agency vs. political economy in low-income energy transitions in California: the case of the Bassett–Avocado Heights Advanced Energy Community - Robert Cudd; Sebastián Solarte-Caicedo; Eric Daniel Fournier; Rachel Sheinberg; Stephanie Pincetl (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In California, the progressive electrification of residential buildings is one of the primary mechanisms by which the state intends to decarbonize urban life. State action on residential decarbonization via electrification has involved efforts to encourage the adoption of efficient electrified appliances, home energy management systems, and distributed generation and storage technologies. New programs and sociotechnical demonstration projects have sought to develop scalable and replicable techno-economic means of decarbonizing residential buildings and fostering local renewable generation in ways that include disadvantaged communities in state plans for a just and equitable energy transition. Despite the growing scale and variety of residential electrification and decarbonization interventions, questions remain about how increasingly heterogeneous urban electrical configurations will be governed, and whether state and private sector actors can, in cooperation with disadvantaged communities, create just and equitable modalities of hybrid infrastructural governance. In this study, we examine the interplay of systemic imperatives and local preferences through the implementation of the Bassett–Avocado Heights Advanced Energy Community (BAAEC). With respect to both of the project’s sociotechnical interventions, we find that concerns relating to profitability and replicability strongly shape the process and outcome dimensions of the project, raising concerns about how community actors are enrolled in state-led energy community initiatives.

Intertwined renewable and digital transitions: a study on South Australia’s hybridized electricity system - Margot Pellegrino; Marika Rupeka (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This paper examines the implications of an energy transition characterized by the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources, distributed energy assets, and digitalization, using South Australia as a central case study. By leveraging and adapting the concept of “Electrical Hybridization” (Verdeil and Jaglin, 2023), we show how South Australia’s ambitious energy policies, which integrate economic growth with decarbonization, are transforming its electricity system. This transformation requires both the reinforcement of the electricity network (reticulation) and the extensive deployment of distributed energy assets (heterogeneity). An additional trend, coordination, is emerging as a crucial element in South Australia, facilitating the control of distributed energy assets through smart interfaces and digital networks. We then analyse the system-wide evolutions driven by the convergence of renewable energy transition and digitalization, detailing the evolving energy governance arrangements and underlining the significant interaction between public bodies and private initiatives in investments and regulatory reforms. Finally, we explore the broader implications of these developments, raising critical questions around decentralization, local empowerment, and participation in the energy transition. We conclude by suggesting that further research is essential to fully understand the complex, intertwined effects of the renewable and digital transitions.

Heterogeneous energy infrastructures in Europe: layering and orchestrating Positive Energy Districts - Andrew Karvonen; Dieter Bruggeman; Dick Magnusson; Michael Ornetzeder; Harald Rohracher (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) have rapidly emerged as a dominant policy instrument in Europe to accelerate urban climate transitions. PEDs target the district scale to optimise energy system performance through a combination of technical and social interventions. These activities are driven by an engineering logic that considers energy infrastructures to be rational, integrated, and governable. In practice, PED stakeholders engage with heterogeneous infrastructure configurations that are influenced by multiple historical, political, and social specificities. In this article, we use the notion of ‘sociotechnical dispositif’ to characterise the processes of reconstituting the heterogeneous infrastructures of three PEDs in Sweden, Belgium, and Austria. We compare and contrast processes of layering the components in each district as well as processes of orchestrating stakeholders towards shared end goals. The findings contribute to critical infrastructure studies by revealing how European policy ambitions for energy transformation collide with heterogeneous infrastructures and by identifying the situated, contingent, and emergent characteristics of reconfiguring infrastructures at the district scale. The study of layering and orchestrating also highlights opportunities for PED stakeholders to develop and practice new forms of decentralised governance within each district that have the potential to influence broader urban transformations.

Heterogeneous energy landscapes and the challenges for spatial planning: the Port of Ravenna and its hinterland - Leonardo Ramondetti (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This article investigates how the changes in energy supply and the switch to renewable sources are transforming long-established industrial sites into novel energy landscapes. These are composed of heterogeneous spaces which pose challenges to the current governance of urban transformations, especially in terms of spatial planning. Such a trend is evident in sites with a high density of energy infrastructures, as well as a great degree of interdependence between these and the urban space, such as ports and their hinterlands. In Italy, Ravenna is an example of this. Once a major hub for gas extraction and processing in the Adriatic Sea, this Port has recently been the target of numerous projects to combine diverse energy facilities, turning it into the largest green energy hub in the Mediterranean. This transformation has however major implications for its surroundings: altering the environment, changing the maritime ecology, and complexifying the urban landscape with new functions and uses. With respect to this, the article advocates for an in-depth investigation of the heterogeneous spaces that form this landscape, and their interactions, to evidence the opportunities and risks of the ongoing energy-related transformations. This knowledge is useful to open up vistas on the many points of friction produced by current energy projects and to propose alternative spatial arrangements and design approaches to mitigate and govern existing tensions.

Power struggles: urban heterogeneity and unruly electricity access in Dar es Salaam - Jochen Monstadt; Daniel Msangi; Kei Otsuki (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Among the considerable challenges many African utility companies and governments face in universalising electricity access are the economic losses and technical problems resulting from irregular practices of electricity access. Despite its concerted efforts, TANESCO—the Tanzania Electric Supply Company—is no exception to this. Against this backdrop, this study empirically investigates the tensions between energy access and cost recovery goals and the spatially heterogeneous practices of unruly electricity access in Dar es Salaam. Here, organised networks of street electricians act as intermediaries between TANESCO and electricity users and facilitate energy access in a grey zone of illegality, informality and entrepreneurship. We studied two contrasting neighbourhoods in Dar es Salaam: Mabwepande, an unplanned peri-urban neighbourhood with low- to middle-income residents, and Msasani, a low-density neighbourhood of wealthy households and upmarket hotels and businesses. Based on a literature review and the analysis of policy documents, utility reports and statistical data, participatory observations and interviews with key stakeholders, our empirical investigation demonstrates that the phenomenon of widespread unruly energy access practices is far from exclusive to low-income communities: in Msasani, wealthy urban households and local businesses have developed sophisticated practices of energy theft, causing a considerable financial burden to the utility company. Our findings indicate that to address irregular energy access more effectively, more differentiated policy responses are needed that take account of the heterogeneous user experiences within cities and that take advantage of informality and entrepreneurship as potential resources for infrastructural and urban futures.

Unruly rooftops: solar thermal configurations and the labor of maintenance and repair in Amman - Kendra Kintzi (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Editorial for the special feature: “Citizens’ attitudes and preferences for climate change policies and technologies in Southeast and East Asia” - Daniel del Barrio Alvarez; Masahiro Sugiyama; Truong Dang Thuy; Anbumozhi Venkatachalam; Koichi Yamaura (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Correction: Introducing listening as a weak method for advancing sustainability and interdisciplinary scholarship - Artur Branny; Megan Maurer; Erik Andersson; Timon McPhearson; Christopher M. Raymond; Maija Faehnle; Anton Stahl Olafsson; Natalie Marie Gulsrud (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Theatre of the Innova(c)tors: an interactive theatre tool to create transformative spaces - Alexandra Polido; Franziska Ehnert; Jasmin Jossin; André Mascarenhas (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Complex sustainability challenges call for transformative spaces where participants are encouraged to move away from conventional thinking. Arts-based and embodied practices can enable new encounters with the world and new forms of meaning-making. We introduce the Theatre of the Innova(c)tors, an interactive theatre tool that encourages reflexivity and learning by creating transformative spaces. Inspired by the techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed, specifically Image Theatre, this tool engages diverse audiences and empowers participants. The Theatre of the Innova(c)tors can serve as a pedagogical innovation and intervention tool to explore different dimensions of care and can be applied in different communities, where it needs to be contextualised and customised to their specific needs.

Key conservation actions for European steppes in the context of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework - Cristian Pérez-Granados; Ana Benítez-López; Mario Díaz; João Gameiro; Bernd Lenzner; Núria Roura-Pascual; Julia Gómez-Catasús; Rocío Tarjuelo; Adrián Barrero; Luis Bolonio; Gerard Bota; Mattia Brambilla; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM–GBF) envisions a world living in harmony with nature by 2050, with 23 intermediate targets to be achieved by 2030. However, aligning international policy and national and local implementation of effective actions can be challenging. Using steppe birds, one of the most threatened vertebrate groups in Europe, as a model system, we identified 36 conservation actions for the achievement of the KM–GBF targets and we singled out—through an expert-based consensus approach—ten priority actions for immediate implementation. Three of these priority actions address at least five of the first eight KM–GBF targets, those related to the direct causes of biodiversity loss, and collectively cover all the targets when implemented concurrently. These actions include (i) effectively protecting priority areas, (ii) implementing on-the-ground habitat management actions, and (iii) improving the quality and integration of monitoring programmes. Our findings provide a blueprint for implementing effective strategies to halt biodiversity loss in steppe-like ecosystems. Our approach can be adapted to other taxonomic groups and ecosystems and has the potential to serve as a catalyst for policy-makers, prompting a transition from political commitment to tangible actions, thereby facilitating the attainment of the KM–GBF targets by 2030.

Contested adaptation futures: the role of global imaginaries in climate adaptation governance - G. C. S. Kanarp; Steffen Böhm; Annette Löf (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Despite increasing recognition of climate risks, there is a lack of adequate adaptation responses, which we argue is partly due to how governance actors imagine the future. In this article, we contend that ‘imaginaries’—collective visions of desirable futures—shape governance regimes and their approaches to climate adaptation. This framework allows us to explore the various goals and political dynamics integral to climate adaptation governance, revealing the processes through which desired futures are constructed, promulgated, and contested. Using an abductive, qualitative content analysis method, we study academic and grey literature to map and understand globally-influential climate adaptation imaginaries. We identify six distinct imaginaries: Eco-Modern State, Just Adaptation, Promethean (Green) Growth, High-Tech Society, Human Stewardship, and Knowledge Society. These adaptation imaginaries, rooted in deep-seated ethical and ontological beliefs, each present a unique vision of the future, complete with preferred adaptation strategies and key stakeholders. We contribute to the literature by showing how the globally dominant climate adaptation imaginaries reproduce existing power relations and business-as-usual approaches. Our analysis thereby provides political impetus for questioning business-as-usual approaches to climate change, enabling us to go beyond taken-for-granted assumptions of what future societies and economies might look like, and critically examining the interplay between different sociopolitical actors in adaptation governance.

Informing adaptive governance of agricultural heritage landscapes under structural changes: the role of values, rules and knowledge - Wenxiu Chi; Koushik Chowdhury; Guangsi Lin; Emmeline Topp; Tobias Plieninger (Sustainability Science, 2025)

How can relational, decolonial and feminist approaches inform the EU bioeconomy? - Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen; Jacopo Giuntoli; Tom Oliver; Lyla Mehta (Sustainability Science, 2025)
In this commentary we argue that, to transform the bioeconomy sectors towards ecologically less harmful and socially fairer outcomes, the bioeconomy policy project must be questioned, re-politicised and fundamentally reframed and reinvented. We firstly identify some of the main root causes for continuity of extractivism and injustices in the bioeconomy policy and, more broadly, in the green transition (“Root causes of today’s socioecological crises and why they matter for the EU bioeconomy project” section). Secondly, we outline the largely neglected ideas and concerns emerging from relational, feminist and decolonial approaches and perspectives (“Moving beyond growth while enabling marginalised voices, knowledges, and practices that nurture web of life and wellbeing for all” section). Finally, we compile a list of 11 actions and 47 suggestions for decisionmakers, practitioners and academics to contemplate on how to cocreate bioeconomies founded on ethics of care, relationality and socioecological justice. Ultimately, the aim is to reject socioecological domination, extractivism and exploitation and foster collective wellbeing for all beings, human and other-than-human.

Co-imagining future scenarios can enhance environmental actors’ empathy toward future generations and non-human life-forms - Elson Ian Nyl Ebreo Galang; Elena M. Bennett; Gordon Hickey; Julia Baird; Gillian Dale; Kate Sherren (Sustainability Science, 2025)

The art of arts-based interventions in transdisciplinary sustainability research - Sophia-Marie Horvath; Ulrike Payerhofer; Arjen Wals; Georg Gratzer (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Transdisciplinary, co-creative research deals with complex real-world problems, with complexity being a common denominator of sustainability issues. It is often understood as an interplay of two dimensions, collaboration and creativity, that facilitates the integration of different forms of knowledge and the creation of transformative outcomes. In the end, it aims to find more holistic and systemic solutions to complex real-world problems. Increasingly, Arts-Based Interventions (ABIs) are proposed to support sustainability-oriented transdisciplinary research. However, little research has been done so far to gauge the extent to which adding arts to the mix actually benefits the transdisciplinary research process and outcomes. In the research project reported on in this article, we took a first step into the realm of the arts by including ABIs into transdisciplinary brainstorming sessions. We investigated their influence on the research process and outcomes as perceived by the participants. We found ABIs to positively influence both dimensions of co-creativity—(1) collaboration, through enhancing the sense of togetherness in the group, and (2) creativity, directly and indirectly through a perceived emotionalization. ABIs were perceived to induce a change of perspective and a broadening of horizons that can facilitate the creation of transformative solutions. Moreover, their reported emotionalizing impact points toward an integration of tacit—in particular emotional—knowledge. This can lead to a more holistic view of the investigated problem. Altogether, the reported impacts of ABIs on transdisciplinary research can promote the creation of transformative and holistic solutions to sustainability issues in transdisciplinary sustainability research.

Framings in Indigenous futures thinking: barriers, opportunities, and innovations - Jessica Cheok; Julia van Velden; Elizabeth A. Fulton; Iain J. Gordon; Ilisapeci Lyons; Garry D. Peterson; Liz Wren; Rosemary Hill (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Human societies face existential challenges on multiple fronts: climate change, biodiversity loss, altered biogeochemical flows, social unrest and injustices. Innovative solutions are needed to shift current trajectories towards a sustainable and just future. Futures thinking enables people to explore and articulate alternative futures and find pathways towards their desired futures. Indigenous people have the potential to make significant contributions to futures thinking because of their distinctive perspectives: the viewpoint of already living in a post-apocalyptic world in the context of colonisation, unique knowledges, worldviews, and perspectives on time, as well as significant contributions to safeguarding biological and cultural diversity. A body of literature is emerging where Indigenous peoples contribute to and lead futures thinking approaches; however, this literature is diffuse and highly diverse in its approaches and terminology. Thus, we take an innovation-seeking and systematic approach to (1) identify patterns and processes in futures thinking with, for, and by Indigenous people; (2) highlight innovative approaches; (3) bring together diverse and sector-specific terminology; and (4) foreground emerging strengths and weaknesses. We identified four framings of Indigenous futures thinking: Adaptation oriented, Participatory, Culturally grounded, and Indigenising. Factors contributing to innovation include strong involvement of Indigenous people in the research team, co-design, and authorship, using Indigenous methodologies, cultural protocols, and explicitly employing decolonisation and trauma-informed approaches. We spotlight the challenges of conducting an exhaustive literature review in an emerging field with inconsistent terminology (e.g., capturing regions where Indigeneity is contested). We also create a living glossary of terms to aid other researchers and communities in using and refining the suite of methods identified here, with the aim of stimulating further innovations in this field.

Contestations in the emerging soil-based carbon economy: towards a research agenda - Julie Ingram; Damian Maye; Mark Reed (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This paper highlights the need to consider the processes and relations in the political, knowledge, technical and socio-material complex that underpins the emergence of a soil-based carbon economy. This economy, characterised by the proliferation of voluntary soil-based carbon markets, carbon farming policies, supply chain and other initiatives, operates through private mechanisms (offsetting, insetting) and public policy instruments. This emerging economy entails a number of inherent political and knowledge contestations associated with claims around the mitigation potential of soil carbon sequestration and carbon farming. We adapt a social ecological systems (SES) framework to understand these contestations and draw on a corpus of agricultural, ecological, political and social science literatures to identify and pose critical questions for future research. We conceptualise the emerging soil-based carbon economy as interactions and outcomes among actors embedded within a defined SES (governance, resource systems, resource units, actors). Five themes are identified: Marketisation, abstraction and technogovernance; Power relations and expert knowledge; Disputing the meaning and value of soil carbon; Disruptions: new interfaces, configurations and actor relations; Uncertainties and capabilities. These underpin a research agenda proposal. We argue that an integrative conceptualisation is essential to equitably account for the broad mix of social, technical, economic, political, and ecological contexts in which soil carbon is embedded and present options for operationalising the conceptualisation.

Correction: Understanding the mechanisms of meaning-making for transformations toward sustainability: contributions from Personal Knowledge Theory - Benita C. Odii; Yanyan Huang; Marie K. Harder (Sustainability Science, 2025)

The transformative potential of the EU’s Nature Restoration Law - Jerneja Penca; Mihnea Tănăsescu (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Gaps and overlaps between sustainability science and the environmental humanities - Julien Blanco; Clémence Moreau; Stéphanie M. Carrière; Elodie Fache; Miriam Cué Rio; François Calatayud; Jean-Christophe Castella; Pierre-Yves Le Meur; Émilie Coudel; Dominique Hervé; Philippe Méral; Clara Therville (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Are all renewable energy sources the same? A comparative analysis of public perceptions and preferences for renewable energy types in Southeast Asian cities - Daniel del Barrio Alvarez; Nan Wang; Masahiro Sugiyama; Masako Numata; Truong Dang Thuy; Azlina Abd Aziz; Rosalina Palanca-Tan; Aung Ze Ya; Ariel Anshory Yusuf; Awang Noor Abd. Ghani; Gem Castillo; Martin Daniel Siyaranamual; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)
The realization of a sustainable energy transition in Southeast Asia will require the overcoming of the current high reliance on fossil fuels in the energy mix and the steady and rapid growth in energy demand in the region. To achieve an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable energy transition in the region, it is vital to utilize all available renewable energy sources to the greatest extent possible. It is therefore essential to gain an understanding of how citizens in each country perceive the available renewables. However, the majority of existing literature in this region has been constrained by a narrow focus on a comparison between fossil and renewable energy. Furthermore, while previous research has predominantly concentrated on single-country analyses, there are significant implications that could be disseminated across ASEAN countries. In light of the aforementioned limitations of existing literature, this paper aims to make a contribution by undertaking a comparative analysis of public preferences for renewable energy sources in eight major urban areas in seven Southeast Asian countries. The findings of this study indicate that, while climate change (or global warming) is perceived as a significant issue, it is often regarded as a secondary concern compared to other environmental issues. This is despite the fact that many of these issues are closely interlinked with and would be exacerbated by climate change. Furthermore, the findings suggest that solar energy is the most preferred renewable source across all urban areas surveyed. In contrast, bioenergy (or biomass) is generally the least preferred source of energy in all cities. There is considerable variation in perceptions of wind, hydro, and geothermal energy, with a high degree of variability between and within countries. These similarities and differences in preferences for renewable energy sources appear to be associated with varying levels of knowledge or familiarity with each source, which is consistent with differing willingness to pay for each source. These findings highlight the necessity for policies that address this apparent lack of understanding of how the transition to a sustainable energy system and each renewable energy technology can help mitigate the impact of environmental problems highlighted in each society.

Beyond the urban shift: towards a relational degrowth spatial politics - A. Varvarousis; G. Kallis; C. Catanneo; F. Sekulova; M. Tsagkari; A. Slamersak; M. Conde; G. Dalisa; K. Hanacek; B. Roy (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Degrowth is coming of age, and its analysis of what can be called degrowth spatial politics is advancing rapidly. In this article, we attempt to unravel the history of spatial thought in the degrowth literature to reveal its tendencies, tipping points, and blank spots. We argue that the more recent degrowth spatial literature overly focuses on the big urban scale by reversing what has purportedly been one of the weak spots of degrowth scholarship: its focus and preference for small-scale, relocalization, and decentralized communities. While we see the merit of this shift, first, we try to contextualize it in the broader sustainability discourse, and second, we contend that it has not been without problems and omissions. We see three predicaments stemming from it: first, a deficit of the degrowth spatial literature in recognizing and engaging with unsustainable rural transformations such as rural depopulation and shrinkage, as well as rural dispossession and depeasantisation. Second, a difficulty to account for urban and rural interconnectedness and engage with new epistemological frames that emerge in urban studies, such as planetary urbanization. Third, the urban shift may affect the capacity of degrowth to remain pluriversal, anti-colonial, and grassroots-fueled, or what Chertkovskaya et al. (Towards a political economy of degrowth. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PuXaDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=info:c45bQLgYCfYJ:scholar.google.com&ots=5LsDF9Y_Er&sig=buZn4ogpUN4octi3_WFJf1mO9Lg ) called nomadic utopianism . Finally, in the concluding part, we set the stepstones for a relational degrowth spatial politics, focusing on a solidary connection of space and place across the urban and rural and in multiple scales. This approach avoids the pitfalls of both degrowth proposals for relocalization and those who put excessive trust in urban transformations alone.

Public preferences for renewable energy sources in Indonesia - Martin D. Siyaranamual; Arief A. Yusuf (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Impact of land transformation, management and governance on subjective wellbeing across social–ecological systems - Patricia Santillán-Carvantes; Alejandra Tauro; Patricia Balvanera; Juan Miguel Requena-Mullor; Antonio J. Castro; Cristina Quintas-Soriano; Berta Martín-López (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Recognizing and understanding the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of individuals is essential for designing effective policies that promote human development and the sustainable management of social-ecological systems (SES). This is particularly important for smallholders, critical stewards of biodiversity who face acute livelihood challenges. This article explores how smallholders inhabiting tropical dry forests in Mexico perceive their SWB and how it changes across a spectrum of SES that undergo different land transformations, management intensities, and governance dynamics. Our aims are to identify the dimensions of SWB that smallholders perceive, understand how these dimensions change across SES, and examine how smallholders’ perceptions of fulfilled material and non-material dimensions vary across SES. We analyzed the content of 25 in-depth interviews with farmers and identified 48 SWB items belonging to six categories: (1) social capital, (2) economic capital, (3) agency, (4) nature, (5) pleasant non-work activities, and (6) governmental services, and two additional dimensions referred to obstacles and enablers. We found two prevailing visions of SWB: ‘living well’ prevails especially in areas with communal governance and medium management intensity, and ‘need to earn more’ prevails in areas with individual governance and intensified land management. As management is intensified and governance fosters individualism, the lower the self-perceived material and non-material satisfaction. We discuss the different SWB found per SES, as well as strategies that can foster smallholder’s SWB and SES dynamics that can motivate different conservation goals and sustainable uses of nature, especially in biodiverse areas.

Climate policy beyond ideological trenches - Miguel Bastos Araújo; Diogo Alagador; Miguel Rocha de Sousa (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Public perception of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and its influencing factors: evidence from a survey in Malaysia - Azlina Abd Aziz; Awang Nor Ghani; Masahiro Sugiyama; Daniel del Barrio Alvarez; Emily Cox; Elspeth Spence; Mahirah Kamaludin (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Reversing degradation of social–ecological systems: explaining the outcomes of interventions in Africa - Camille Jahel; Eric F. Lambin (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Correction: Public attitude toward solar radiation modification: results of a two-scenario online survey on perception in four Asia–Pacific countries - Masahiro Sugiyama; Shinichiro Asayama; Takanobu Kosugi; Atsushi Ishii; Shingo Watanabe (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Public attitude toward solar radiation modification: results of a two-scenario online survey on perception in four Asia–Pacific countries - Masahiro Sugiyama; Shinichiro Asayama; Takanobu Kosugi; Atsushi Ishii; Shingo Watanabe (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Solar geoengineering or solar radiation modification (SRM) is increasingly looming large as a potential response to human-induced climate change. However, it is deeply mired in controversies surrounding environmental risks and social governance challenges. Given the high stakes and uncertain characteristics of SRM, it is essential to understand public perception. However, previous studies on public perception have not explicitly utilized scenarios to frame SRM as an option in the future and mostly have been conducted in the Global North. Here, we present the results of an online survey conducted in Australia, India, Japan, and the Philippines in 2022. In our survey, we showed two different SRM scenarios in which SRM would play different roles in the policy response to the possibility of climate tipping points. Overall, respondents in India and the Philippines were more concerned about climate change and more supportive of SRM, and tended to feel that future scenarios with SRM deployment were more plausible than those in Japan and Australia. Nonetheless, public support of SRM was ambivalent, and many voiced concerns about the environmental and governance risks of SRM. Our findings suggest the significance of explicitly communicating the policy contexts in which SRM might be deployed in the future for capturing more nuanced understandings of SRM among the public.

Public perception of carbon dioxide removal in three Asian regions - Amani Mohammed Atris; Masahiro Sugiyama; Yi-chun Chen; Ju Yiyi; Koichi Yamaura (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Public perceptions on net zero energy houses in Japan - Koichi Yamaura; Siyi Xu; Masahiro Sugiyama; Yiyi Ju (Sustainability Science, 2025)
For Japan, which has not operated nearly all of its nuclear power plants since 2011 and is dependent on thermal power generation, the introduction of renewable energy into homes is extremely important for the future formation of a sustainable society. However, the introduction of net zero energy house (ZEH) in detached houses, which account for 55% of all dwellings in Japan, has not progressed. To promote the introduction of ZEH, this study clarified the awareness of owners of detached houses regarding ZEH. We analyzed factors that influence such perception of solar photovoltaics (PV) technology using a 1000-sample online survey questionnaire. The survey was conducted in late January 2020 and included questions examining the public perception of solar installation and factors that were found to be important in previous research. We found that Japanese respondents who live in detached houses generally lack an understanding of renewables and that the level of interest in installing solar PV for the ZEH is low. We also found that awareness of renewables, such as knowing new energy policy and searching information on solar PV, is the critical factor of installing renewables. At the same time, most socio-demographic and neighborhood variables seem not to influence installing solar PV or other technologies for ZEH. This research will contribute to the Japanese government’s goal of strengthening education on renewable energy to promote ZEH.

Metro Manila households’ willingness to pay for renewable energy as a climate change mitigation measure: a CVM study - Rosalina Palanca-Tan; Masahiro Sugiyama; Daniel del Barrio Alvarez; Gem B. Castillo; Nelson Matthew P. Tan (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Developing an Agricultural Futures Framework to explore the option space for agricultural change in Europe under alternative value perspectives - Vasco Diogo; Tim G. Williams; Niels Debonne; Christian Levers; Felix Herzog; Matthias Bürgi; Peter H. Verburg (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Emerging threats from climate change on our oceans demand proactive action - Jim Falk; Swadhin Behera; Nancy Bermas; Tony Capon; Joachim von Braun; Rita R. Colwell; Adel S. El-Beltagy; Richard Damania; Charles F. Kennel; Margaret Leinen; Phoebe Koundouri; Cherry A. Murray; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Nature positive strategy with social and economic policy - Shunsuke Managi; Moinul Islam; Dayong Zhang; Caroline Flammer (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Transformative science–policy interfacing: the case of biodiversity and ecosystem services - Simo Sarkki; Juliette C. Young; Marie Vandewalle; Hannu I. Heikkinen; Roger Norum; Marie Stenseke; Carsten Nesshöver; Heidi Wittmer (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Science–policy interfaces (SPI), such as IPCC and IPBES, are key mechanisms by which scientists can contribute to policy making to tackle socio-environmental problems. To capture recent and ongoing developments, we examine the evolution of global and European SPI landscapes in the biodiversity domain grounding a novel concept of “transformative science–policy interfacing”, which is a collective effort to enable fundamental societal change by enhancing connectivity between co-production of knowledge and policy implementation. We consider that transformative science–policy interfacing is not in conflict with, but rather extends the currently prevailing co-production paradigm into directions that rethink the relationships between science, SPI, and policy. It shifts the balance of knowledge co-production from “making sense together” towards “enabling transformative change”. It employs the Science & Technology Studies concept of “co-production of science and social order” by focusing on orchestration of the science–policy interface landscape with a normative agenda leaning towards transformative change. Based on the overview of the evolution of SPI landscape in global and European biodiversity domains, we identify and discuss eight key directions for transformative science–policy interfacing. Further work will be needed to test whether the development towards transformative science–policy interfacing can be observed also in domains beyond environmental topics.

Comparing contested sustainabilities: how diverse human–nature relationships give rise to different approaches to sustainability - Pernille Nielsen; Andreas Aa. Christensen; Simon Bolwig (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Despite increasing acknowledgement of the diversity and different approaches at play in research on sustainability transitions, systematic comparisons of these approaches are scarce. This is a problem for sustainability research, as the coexistence of multiple approaches to sustainability in the absence of an overarching comparative vocabulary may result in disparate and potentially incommensurable assumptions affecting the analysis, implementation, and impact of sustainability transitions. By means of a review and conceptual investigation, we develop a conceptual model for comparing multiple and diverse sustainability approaches. Investigating both the descriptive (stationary) and actionable elements of sustainability, we create a comparative space based on distinguishable parameters shared among sampled sustainability approaches as empirical literature-based units: (1) from instrumentalist to intrinsic valuations of nature; and (2) from holistic to particularistic system considerations. Using a vector-based method to represent a sustainability approach, we systematically compare various perceptions of sustainability problems and solutions, thereby allowing us to characterize different movements towards imagined sustainable futures.

A model that integrates stocks and flows of multi-capitals for understanding and assessing the sustainability of social–ecological systems - Roger D. Magarey; Thomas M. Chappell (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Adaptation: is securing funding really the top priority for COP negotiations? - Osamu Mizuno (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Integrating divergent stakeholder perspectives for sustainable management of high-altitude ecosystems: insights from cordyceps harvesting in the Himalayas - Suraj Upadhaya; Beeju Poudyal; Chantal Tumpach (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Implications of native flora as a sustainable food resource: a case study within a traditional agricultural system in southeast Mexico - Angel Eduardo M. C. Vazquez-Martin; Noe Aguilar-Rivera; Gerardo Torres-Cantu (Sustainability Science, 2025)

A leverage point perspective on serious games for sustainability transformation: a systematic literature review - Sabrina Foppe; Henrik von Wehrden (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Circular bioeconomy accounting tool (CBEAT): a holistic framework for agriculture and agri-food system circularity practice - Raphael Aidoo; Ebenezer Miezah Kwofie (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Building ethical awareness to strengthen co-production for transformation - Stefan Partelow; Christopher Luederitz; Ying-Syuan Huang; Henrik von Wehrden; Christiane Woopen (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Awareness of different ethical theories can support transformation-oriented researchers in navigating value-based decisions in co-production. We synthesize and explicitly link the literature on co-production and ethical theories in philosophy to initiate this awareness. Four key decision points in co-production projects are outlined that require value-based actions: (1) what to focus on, (2) who to include, (3) how to co-create and (4) how to continue. To discuss how project actions can be examined from different ethical perspectives, we synthesize the claims of four ethical theories and discuss them in the context of co-production project choices. The four ethical theories are: deontological ethics, utilitarianism, contractualism and virtue ethics. Overall, we argue for embracing pluralistic ethical perspectives when navigating decisions in co-production projects.

Observing sustainability through the mindfulness lens: a conceptual framework based on a bibliometric review analysis - Jelena Barbir; Caterina Baars; João H. P. P. Eustachio; Ayyoob Sharifi; Marcelo Demarzo; Walter Leal Filho (Sustainability Science, 2025)
To shift human behaviour towards sustainability, a complete comprehension of the approaches that lead to it is required. This study aims to review potential connections between the mindfulness state and trait and changes in human behaviour toward sustainability. Using bibliometric analysis as an innovative approach in this field, combined with an expert-driven literature review, the research builds on previous works regarding sustainability and mindfulness and fosters the research field by exploring six thematic clusters, each containing a set of specific mediators that could bridge this connection. To illustrate the relationship between mindfulness and sustainable development, a framework was developed, illustrating how mindfulness-based skills could positively influence these mediators and which dimensions of sustainable development could be further impacted by it. Moreover, a mindfulness program focused on sustainability and planetary health may be an innovative way to develop competencies related to the variables identified as mediators.

School climate assemblies: an educational tool for empowering pupils and youth to take climate and sustainability action - Gisela Cebrián; Anna Boqué; Jon Xavier Olano; Juan Prieto (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This paper presents school climate assemblies , conceived as an innovative educational tool for the co-creation of climate change and sustainability solutions in educational institutions and communities. It describes an intervention research project that builds on previous processes and experiences of climate citizen assemblies which have been organised in different countries across the world. School climate assemblies are conceived of as a tool that promotes the active engagement of pupils and their communities in co-creating climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies towards jointly defining innovative sustainability and climate change solutions. An intervention, piloted in five secondary schools in the Spanish region of Tarragona, is reported, presenting the main phases and steps followed. To test the effectiveness of the intervention, this paper outlines the policy climate change recommendations that emerged from the co-creation process to identify and agree on a set of actions to tackle climate change and sustainability challenges and the degree of student satisfaction with the intervention. A detailed methodology for organising school climate assemblies that can be replicated in other educational institutions, contexts and regions, is presented, enabling the widespread adoption of this innovative approach. The study emphasises the potential of co-creation methods in the educational context and underscores the critical role of education in fostering sustainability in citizens and empowering students to become active change agents in their local communities. The results lead to policy implications for integrating co-creation approaches into school curricula worldwide, aiming to empower students and drive sustainability action.

Introducing listening as a weak method for advancing sustainability and interdisciplinary scholarship - Artur Branny; Megan Maurer; Erik Andersson; Timon McPhearson; Christopher M. Raymond; Maija Faehnle; Anton Stahl Olafsson; Natalie Marie Gulsrud (Sustainability Science, 2025)
There is now widespread recognition of the need for inter/transdisciplinary (I/TD) approaches to solving global problems like climate change and biodiversity. Yet methods for successfully integrating knowledge across disciplines, and between research and practice, are in need of further development, particularly approaches that can ameliorate epistemological and ontological divides. Here we propose a framework for good listening as a ‘weak method’ that can provide guidance and structure to I/TD collaborations, but does not assume the form and goals a given collaboration will take. Synthesising the results of a scoping, interdisciplinary literature review, we highlight four key components of listening—receiving, processing, interpretation, and feedback/response—and provide a set of normative values regarding ‘good listening’ for each. Our goal is to provide a framework that is grounded in detailed scholarly discussions of listening politics and practice, but that is specifically formulated in response to the needs and concerns of I/TD researchers. We then apply our framework to four commonly encountered challenges in sustainability science, drawing on our collective experience in the field to explore how good listening can aid I/TD collaboration in regards to inclusion, group dynamics, format and pace. In doing so, we hope to inspire those working in sustainability science to approach I/TD collaboration in a new way and provide a tool for facilitating caring and transformational approaches to solving the world’s most pressing sustainability crises.

Carbon footprint of global Bitcoin mining: emissions beyond borders - Nuri C. Onat; Rateb Jabbar; Murat Kucukvar; Tadesse Wakjira; Adeeb A. Kutty; Noora Fetais (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Herding cats: integrative leadership strategies in inter- and transdisciplinary research programs - Lisa Deutsch; Astrid Björnsen; Andreas M. Fischer; Angela Michiko Hama; Niklaus E. Zimmermann; Christian Zurbrügg; Sabine Hoffmann (Sustainability Science, 2025)
This paper focuses on the critical role of integrative leadership in inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research programs. ITD programs have become one of academia’s responses to address contemporary sustainability challenges. Fulfilling the promise of such programs is extraordinarily challenging for all involved participants, but especially for program leaders who have to ensure that the perspectives of the involved program participants become truly integrated and that final and useful synthesis outputs are created. We present six core leadership challenges and respective strategies to address them to advance integration within ITD programs. These challenges include (1) mastering complexity and ambiguity, (2) advancing decision-making with lateral leadership, (3) ensuring responsibility and accountability, (4) setting program boundaries, (5) selecting suitable projects, and (6) dealing with misconceptions. We derived these challenges and respective strategies from both leading and studying in-depth three ITD programs focusing on sustainability issues in Switzerland. With this paper, we intend to promote awareness about the range of leadership challenges in ITD programs and provide actionable knowledge, which can support in particular fellow and future leaders, but also funders and heads of research institutions in their efforts to realize the integrative potential of such programs. Graphical abstract Image 1: © Eawag: Lisa Deutsch & Sabine Hoffmann; Stückelberger Cartoons: Christof Stückelberger, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Revisiting the sustainability science research agenda - Mesfin Sahle; Shruti Ashish Lahoti; So-Young Lee; Katja Brundiers; Carena J. van Riper; Christian Pohl; Herlin Chien; Iris C. Bohnet; Noé Aguilar-Rivera; Peter Edwards; Prajal Pradhan; Tobias Plieninger; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Current constraints to reconcile tropical forest restoration and bioeconomy - Pedro Medrado Krainovic; Diego Oliveira Brandão; Angélica Faria Resende; Stella Z. Schons; Leonardo Munhoz; Jean Paul Metzger; Nathália C. Nascimento; Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues; Pedro H. S. Brancalion; Joannès Guillemot; Sergio de-Miguel (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Large-scale forest restoration is vital for delivering a broad array of ecosystem services benefits to society. However, it is often perceived as an economically noncompetitive land use choice. Integrating economic opportunities into restoration aligns socioeconomic and environmental goals, reducing conflicts between forest production and conservation-oriented management decisions. Supply chains focusing on high-value goods can enhance the reach of forest restoration efforts and unite ecological and economic benefits in a multifunctional manner. The bioeconomy has emerged as a potential but critical driver for attracting investments in restoration. We outline the challenges and solutions to reconcile forest restoration and bioeconomy, specifically about (i) native timber production, (ii) non-timber forest products, (iii) biotechnological products, and (iv) intangible ecosystem services. This requires collaborative and multidisciplinary efforts to improve investment in large-scale projects. The intricacies of these issues intersect with research development, market dynamics, legal frameworks, and regulatory paradigms, underscoring the necessity for nuanced and tailored public policy interventions. These integrated approaches should enable tropical countries to lead the global forest-based economy and usher in a new era of forest restoration. Graphical abstract

Correction: Using novel data and ensemble models to improve automated labeling of Sustainable Development Goals - Dirk U. Wulff; Dominik S. Meier; Rui Mata (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Key attributes for effective knowledge brokering at the interface of environmental science and management - Denis B. Karcher; Christopher Cvitanovic; R. M. Colvin; Ingrid van Putten; Ramona Dalla Pozza; Stephen Posner (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Spanning the boundaries between research and decision-making is critical for supporting environmental management. One way to do so is through knowledge brokers who, among other things, work to build social networks among decision-makers and researchers, facilitating their interaction and exchange of knowledge. While knowledge brokering has received increasing attention in the literature, critical gaps in our knowledge limit their effective recruitment and implementation, which demands for a better understanding of the personal attributes needed for their success. Such an understanding is also necessary to support the evaluation of knowledge brokering activities. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the question ‘what are the most important attributes for being a knowledge broker at the interface of environmental research and management’, and how is knowledge brokering evaluated. We do so through the study of Australia’s National Environmental Science Program (NESP) which employs a range of professional knowledge brokers, 14 of whom participated in this study. Specifically, we performed a quantitative ranking exercise (Q-methodology) and an online survey. Results show that the most important attributes to knowledge brokering were interpersonal social competencies of a unifying nature. As such, Being good at seeing opportunities for collaboration, Being able to tailor communication to different audiences, and Being able to ask questions were the most highly ranked attributes. In the dimension of evaluation, survey results show that NESP knowledge brokers are mainly evaluated through metrics relating to immediate delivery and engagement (mostly quantitative measures) and medium-term impact on end-users (qualitative measures). However, participants envisioned better options to capture the impact/value of knowledge brokering by evaluating long-term impacts and efforts throughout the full brokering process to better capture value addition in line with their goals, strategies, and required attributes. The new knowledge generated through our findings offers an applied contribution to the practice of knowledge brokering, suggesting that knowledge brokering is a distinct and complex career whereby different knowledge brokers with complementary skill sets appear relevant to perform all tasks along a knowledge brokering timeline. As such, our results also emphasize the need for bespoke approaches to evaluation that are tailored towards the diverse goals, strategies, and personal contributions of knowledge brokers to support their career progression and maximise outcomes.

Delivering scientific evidence for global policy and management to ensure ocean sustainability - K. Evans; J. O. Schmidt; K. Appeaning Addo; M. J. Bebianno; D. Campbell; J. Fan; R. Gonzalez-Quiros; E. Y. Mohammed; M. G. Shojaei; V. Smolyanitsky; C.-I. Zhang (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Life depends on the ocean, with societal health, cultural systems and national economies reliant on ocean processes and resources. As ocean resources are used, and humans continue to drive climate change, the benefits from the ocean to society are being diminished. Science must meet the needs of policy and deliver to decision makers the information and tools for identifying pathways that support continued delivery of the benefits society derives from the ocean, whilst minimising impacts. This is crucial if the world’s nations are to meet the goals and targets they have set under international agreements. Here, we outline how a global assessment that focuses specifically on the ocean, the World Ocean Assessment, is linking science to the governments of the world and their policies within an internationally mandated framework. In doing so, we identify key elements that are needed for facilitating engagement by decision makers and uptake of knowledge, and the pathways taken by the assessment in implementing them. We also provide insights into the evolution that the World Ocean Assessment has undertaken over its first three cycles to progress its goal of enhancing the scientific basis of policymaking. We identify the challenges in delivering science to policy at a global scale and the work that still needs to be done in filling gaps to achieve a coordinated, comprehensive mechanism for connecting science with policy and ensuring future sustainability of the ocean.

Correction: Conducting sustainability research in the anthropocene: toward a relational approach - Jessica Böhme; Eva-Maria Spreitzer; Christine Wamsler (Sustainability Science, 2025)

Interplays between relational and instrumental values: insights from research experiences on human–nature relations - Maraja Riechers; Jasmine Pearson; Nataly Diaz-Cruz; Stefan Ortiz-Przychodzka; Emmeline Topp (Sustainability Science, 2025)
Relational values have become increasingly recognised within the field of social–ecological systems as an innovative and in-depth approach to uncovering the value of human–nature relationships around the world. As an emerging concept within mainstream Western academia, there is still much to learn about the potential challenges of working with relational values and how to navigate them in applied research. Drawing on empirical research from Colombia, Fiji, Germany, Romania and South Africa, this paper explores the key themes which emerged when working with human–nature relationships. We reveal complex interconnections between relational and instrumental values, livelihood practices and power and politics. We conclude by highlighting the importance of acknowledging the fluidity of relational values and their potential to bridge different worldviews and knowledge systems between researchers and communities.

Correction: Biosphere Reserves as model regions for transdisciplinarity? A literature review - Caroline Hélène Dabard; Charlotte Gohr; Fabio Weiss; Henrik von Wehrden; Frederike Neumann; Solomiia Hordasevych; Bruno Arieta; Jenny Hammerich; Caroline Meier; Janine Jargow; Vera Luthardt; Pierre L. Ibisch; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Knowledge co-production for identifying indicators and prioritising solutions for food and land system sustainability in Australia - Romy L. Zyngier; Carla L. Archibald; Brett A. Bryan; Haley Lambert; Enayat A. Moallemi; Mark Elliott; Mark Lawrence; Jane Hutchinson; Lauren T. Bennett; Timothy Reeves; Matthew Pryor; Ulrika Lindholm; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Achieving sustainable Australian food and land systems requires the rapid implementation and scaling up of a broad suite of solutions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Decision-making frameworks are needed to identify suitable indicators and prioritise solutions at national scales to inform sustainability transitions. Using a knowledge co-production framework, we convened 150 stakeholders from 100 + organisations to identify 18 nationally relevant indicators that aligned with critical SDGs describing a sustainable food and land system for Australia, in addition to 78 key solutions (supply- and demand-side) to enable progress against these indicators. We then asked subject matter experts to code the impact of each solution on each indicator using an adapted interaction mapping method accounting for uncertainty. The solution category ‘Protecting and restoring nature’, which included solutions targeting conservation and restoration, showed the highest potential for capturing synergies and avoiding trade-offs across multiple indicators. This category exhibited 34.6% of total major synergies, supporting the achievement of clean water and sanitation (SDG6), economic growth (SDG12), life under water (SDG14), and life on land (SDG15). The solution category ‘Carbon sequestration’, which included technological and biological carbon dioxide removal solutions, had the highest number of trade-offs with individual sustainability indicators (42.3%), particularly those relating to zero hunger (SDG2), wellbeing (SDG3), SDG6, SDG14, and SDG15. Our framework can be used to inform future research investment, support the prioritisation of solutions for quantitative modelling, and inform discussions with stakeholders and policymakers for transforming national-scale food and land systems in alignment with the SDGs.

Wilson’s bottleneck - Charles Kennel; Jim Falk; David G. Victor (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Planetary sustainability is in trouble, heading towards what pioneer of evolutionary biology, E.O Wilson, twenty-two years ago called a “bottleneck”. Created through the actions of humanity this is an increasingly narrow passage through which only some species can pass, and on which humans depend to provide the sources of re-radiation. What is lost is hard to impossible to restore. Keeping this passage as wide as possible is crucial, but the trends are not yet promising. At a time when those trends appear to be converging to a human and ecological crisis of planetary but finite duration, changed priorities are required whilst at the same time providing opportunity. In particular, strategies, such as experimental governance devised to act in the face of unknowns and uncertain knowledge provide a basis for action to hold open and successfully pass through the bottleneck, a goal which is of the highest importance for humans as we seek to achieve a sustainable future.

Actors’ roles and their distribution in transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: an exploratory study of research projects in the French LTSER network - Isabelle Arpin; Kristina Likhacheva; Vincent Bretagnolle (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Institutionalising degrowth regime: a review and analysis of degrowth transition proposals - Minna Käyrä; Irene Kuhmonen (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The degrowth project proposes a fundamental reorganisation of contemporary society. The existing literature focuses on explaining why degrowth is needed to tackle the multiple socioecological crises of our time and what needs to change in contemporary society. Recently, there have been explicit calls to moving on to thinking about the question of how a degrowth transition could be achieved. In this task, we identify the ‘end’ of the vision, that is, the cornerstones of a degrowth society, and focus on the suggested changes leading there. Therefore, we conceptualise a degrowth society as a regime that can be studied with the help of institutional theory and the change leading to a degrowth regime as a degrowth transition. To understand the constituents of such a regime, we conducted a systematic mapping of the degrowth literature by focusing on specific change proposals from 2000 to 2020. We analysed these change proposals in the framework of institutional theory and identified three overarching themes forming the backbone of a degrowth society: reduction, reorganisation and localisation. These themes represent the cultural–cognitive dimension of institutionalisation processes and entail varying degrees of normative and regulative dimensions. According to the degrowth change proposals in the literature, reduction is to be achieved mainly through top-down regulation, while reorganisation and localisation require a bottom-up approach to mobilising collective agency and changes in the normative orientation of society. Our analysis regarding the founding pillars of the institutional order of a degrowth society unveils essential signposts that could be considered when formulating policies and narratives compatible with a degrowth transition.

Navigating sustainability: key factors in prioritising Sustainable Development Goals - Atie Asadikia; Abbas Rajabifard; Mohsen Kalantari (Sustainability Science, 2024)
A bstract Prioritising sustainable development goals (SDGs) is one of the fundamental approaches to achieving global sustainability objectives, as it helps efficient resource allocation, addresses urgent needs, enhances policy coherence, and measures impact. Despite existing efforts, there remains an unclear understanding of the key factors needed for effective SDG prioritisation, presenting challenges for strategic planning and decision-making. This study provides an evidence-based analysis of these critical factors by examining relevant literature, conducting surveys, and employing Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The study identifies four primary factors for SDG prioritisation: SDG interrelations, performance, scope, and alignment. The findings confirm that national prioritisation have more priority compared to global, regional, and sub-national systems, and that prioritisation is more valuable at the indicator level rather than at the goal or target levels. Additionally, prioritisation should initially focus on off-track SDGs. Notably, academia ranks SDG prioritisation based on relationships and performance highly, while government officials emphasise alignment and relevance. Moreover, the results indicate that academia prefers target-level prioritisation, while government officials lean towards indicator level. However, both groups favour national scale over global and regional scales.

Communications enhance sustainable intentions despite other ongoing crises - Ngoc T. H. Nguyen; Simon Willcock; Louise M. Hassan (Sustainability Science, 2024)
There is an ongoing trend toward more frequent and multiple crises. While there is a clear need for behaviors to become more sustainable to address the climate crisis, how to achieve this against the backdrop of other crises is unknown. Using a sample of 18,805 participants from the UK, we performed a survey experiment to investigate if communication messages provide a useful tool in nudging intentions toward improved sustainability in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that, despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, media messaging resulted in increases in sustainability-related intentions for all our communication messaging conditions. Specifically, after our communication was presented, (i) almost 80% of people who were not currently recycling their surgical masks reported their intention to do so; there was a > 70% increase in both (ii) the number of people likely to pick up face mask litter and (iii) the number of people willing to disinfect and reuse their filtering facepiece (FFP) masks 4–6 times, while (iv) there was an increase by 165% in those who would wash cloth masks at 60 °C. Our results highlight that communication messaging can play a useful role in minimizing the trade-offs between multiple crises, as well as maximizing any synergies. To support this, decision-makers and practitioners should encourage the delivery of sustainability advice via multiple sources and across different types of media, while taking steps to address potential misinformation.

Sustainability justice: a systematic review of emergent trends and themes - Darren McCauley; Alberto Quintavalla; Kostina Prifti; Constanze Binder; Felicia Broddén; Hannah van den Brink (Sustainability Science, 2024)
There is a growing importance of understanding the connection between sustainability and justice. We have conducted the first robust mixed-methods review of the burgeoning academic literature on sustainability justice. Our analysis spans literature from 2013 to 2023, drawn from the databases of Web of Science and Scopus. We use a scientometric approach to identify key literature for a more detailed qualitative analysis. This dual approach uncovers key trends and themes in sustainability justice. The review identifies works that delve into the themes of environmental, social, and economic justice, pinpointing a need to amplify Global South voices, narratives, and insights for a comprehensive understanding of sustainability justice. The findings indicate a pressing need for integrating economic aspects with social and environmental factors, advocating for more focus on transformative justice.

Exploring uncharted wilderness: a new conceptualization of transformative leadership education - Magnus Hoppe; Kamran Namdar (Sustainability Science, 2024)
In this explorative essay, we ask how to integrate current development in entrepreneurship education with an education for societal transformation towards sustainability, more explicitly phrased as what and how educators should teach to make students develop transformative capabilities and build action competence for leading societal transformation. We conclude that entrepreneurship education has much to offer and that educators and students ought to transgress institutional borders and explore wilderness together to learn how to create transformative leadership education. Current knowledge indicates that a purposeful education for this end should address seven complementary competencies where students learn to take action, collaborate, engage with society, manage own growth, ground themselves, scout the future, and reframe the system. Due to its inherent qualities, entrepreneurship education, built on engagement in real-world transformative problems, can be considered the most potent foundation for such aspirations. However, as current educational institutions are formed by the malfunctioning and unsustainable system they serve, today’s institutions might not be the best forerunners of change in any pedagogical practice. This is why we also conclude that progressive educators need to leave their ivory towers, classrooms, and lecture halls behind and engage in real transformative problems head-on with their students by their sides.

Urban novel ecosystems as affective landscapes - Clair Cooper; Marcus J. Collier; Melissa Pineda-Pinto; Natalia Rodriguez Castañeda; Mairéad O’Donnell; Fiona Nulty (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Biosphere Reserves as model regions for transdisciplinarity? A literature review - Caroline Hélène Dabard; Charlotte Gohr; Fabio Weiss; Henrik von Wehrden; Frederike Neumann; Solomiia Hordasevych; Bruno Arieta; Jenny Hammerich; Caroline Meier; Janine Jargow; Vera Luthardt; Pierre L. Ibisch; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The World Network of Biosphere Reserves promotes learning sites for sustainable development, designated under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme (MAB). The programme aims to strengthen biodiversity conservation, economic development and capacity building. Scientific research in and about Biosphere Reserves is expected to support these objectives. In response to a strong focus on natural sciences and conservation issues, calls for transdisciplinary approaches emanated from science and the newest MAB Lima Action Plan. Yet, the extent and contributions of transdisciplinary research in Biosphere Reserves remains unexplored. This study provides a comprehensive and systematic screening of 3304 scientific publications in and about Biosphere Reserves published since 1975. Research within Biosphere Reserves spans a broad spectrum, encompassing social to political to ecological investigations, with a focus on natural sciences and studies conducted mainly in Europe and Asia. We identified an emerging field of transdisciplinary science in research, represented in 336 publications. Most transdisciplinary studies were conducted in Mexican and Indian Biosphere Reserves. While transdisciplinary research provided insights about participation, management and governance in Biosphere Reserves, its transformative potential could be enhanced, notably through stronger forms of participation of non-academic actors in research processes. Our review suggests strengthening knowledge co-creation about transformative solutions and interventions addressing deep leverage points. Scientific research could thereby enhance the role of Biosphere Reserves as model regions for sustainability transformations.

Reconciling conflicting sustainability rationalities: a co-creation approach in urban logistics governance - Subina Shrestha (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Transforming urban logistics governance to become more sustainable comprises reconciling diverse actors’ rationalities. Yet, conventional market-driven solutions, which aim to optimize freight transport, tend to focus on operational efficiency over diverse rationalities. In this paper, we reframe the challenge of urban logistics sustainability governance as that of knowledge integration, which necessitates a transdisciplinary approach that engages with diverse rationalities. By combining data from a co-creation workshop and interviews with logistics actors, we investigate if and how urban logistics sustainability governance can benefit from unpacking these multiple rationalities. Our findings show emergent tensions in Bergen stem from the ad-hoc and fragmented nature of urban logistics planning, which obscures the diverse actor rationalities and assumptions. Actors navigated these tensions in dialogic processes and co-created a shared understanding that sustaining dialogues and using a public-space perspective could mainstream logistics into the city’s planning process. Adopting a transdisciplinary co-creation approach, we demonstrate, can reconcile the diverse rationalities in urban logistics sustainability governance. It facilitates individual and social learning in dialogic processes where actors can reflect on each other’s perspectives, agency, and expectations. We thus call for a shift in planning from an emphasis on market-driven solutions toward process-focus to navigate the innate messiness of governing urban logistics sustainability.

Holistic eco-social imaginaries for a life-centered future - Sandra Waddock (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Enabling shared values for sustainability transformation: empirical lessons from a case of promoting cross-group collaboration in China - Yanyan Huang; Renate Wesselink; Benita O. Odii; Arjen E. J. Wals; Marie K. Harder (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Defining human critical determinants for sustainability: asking psychologists could help - Julia Buzan; Dallas O’Dell; Guillaume Dezecache (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Citizen involvement in local sustainability policymaking: an in-depth analysis of staff activities and motivations - Naomi Bick (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Building on and contributing to sustainability transitions research with qualitative system dynamics - Vincent de Gooyert; Attabik Awan; Cem Gürsan; Floris Swennenhuis; Zahra Janipour; Sara Gonella (Sustainability Science, 2024)
This paper explores the novel connection between qualitative system dynamics and sustainability transitions research. As the urgency for sustainable solutions intensifies, this interdisciplinary combination offers a promising avenue for addressing complex sustainability challenges. We reflect on recent research projects to establish the value of combining the two fields. We delve into the methodological and theoretical synergies, using examples to illustrate how the two fields can mutually benefit from each other. We find that qualitative system dynamics complements other sustainability transitions research approaches by encouraging (a) more inductive research that results in a broader system boundary than traditional sustainability transitions research frameworks and (b) higher endogeneity, which leads to a better appreciation of the feedback mechanisms that determine whether transitions succeed or not. This leads to an explicit reflection on assumptions that otherwise might remain hidden, and more explicit conceptualizations of the feedback mechanisms driving and hindering sustainability transitions and recommendations on navigating seemingly opposing interests that diminish when seeing the whole system. We also propose how future research can contribute to further cross-fertilization between the two fields, including the need for explicit positioning in terms of starting points, considering different philosophical paradigms, exploring combinations with other analytical approaches to foster change, and increasing reflection on the part of researchers, particularly in participative modes. We argue that the fusion of qualitative system dynamics with sustainability transitions research can significantly enhance our understanding and ability to manage complex sustainability issues, substantially contributing to both academic discourse and practical applications in sustainability transitions.

Identifying behavior change interventions with deep leverage: a conceptual and qualitative case study with farmers from Germany - Marieke Cornelia Baaken; Björn Vollan (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Successful transformation of agriculture toward a more sustainable trajectory requires agri-environmental practices and interventions that are deemed supportive by farmers, have the potential for a transformative change and are based on a solid understanding of farmers’ behavior and decision-making. This article reports on in-depth semi-structured interviews with German farmers to uncover key facilitators of and barriers to the adoption of agri-environmental practices. In a first step, 10 themes were identified using a qualitative content analysis, which were then assessed for their potential leverage point from a system perspective and integrated into the diagnostic Behavior Change Wheel to identify targets for behavioral interventions. The paper shows that adding the transformative potential to behavioral interventions is useful. According to our analyses, deep leverage interventions are most likely to be associated with the theme Land stewardship and Identity , and the COM-B model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behavior)—element Reflective motivation , referring to the conscious cognitive processes that direct and inspire behavior.

Community gardens support high levels of food production, but benefit distribution is uneven across the gardener community - Brenda B. Lin; Peter Bichier; Heidi Liere; Monika Egerer; Stacy M. Philpott; Shalene Jha (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Urban community gardens are important social–ecological systems from which urban citizens receive many benefits. In this study of 18 urban community gardens in the Central Coast of California, USA, we use a combination of gardener surveys and field-based measurements to evaluate the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables produced by gardeners. We then investigate how food production differed between segments of the gardening population, specifically as a function of gardening experience, time spent in gardens, and food security status. Lastly, we ask gardeners to describe their motivations for gardening to better understand how motivations may relate to individual levels of food production. Thirty-eight percent of gardeners estimate harvesting one to five pounds of food per week, with another 26% estimating six to ten pounds. These estimates were corroborated by field measurements of tomato, squash, and pepper cultivation, where gardeners produced, at the height of the harvest season, an average of four pounds of food per week—an estimated savings of ~ $16USD per week (compared to the cost of local organic fruits and vegetables, June 2023 prices). Regarding the ability of community gardens to reduce food insecurity, gardeners who spent more time in the garden and with higher incomes reported higher food security, while those with larger families or lower incomes were more food insecure. These results show that gardeners in most need of food support were not necessarily the ones cultivating the most fruits and vegetables. While 48% of gardeners reported food cultivation as a primary motivator for gardening, many other motivations (e.g., hobby, being outdoors, relaxation, social interaction, and exercise) were identified as reasons to spend time in the garden, indicating that food production is not the only factor motivating gardeners. Overall, we document that community gardens can be highly productive and provide valuable produce that substantially offsets high fresh food costs; however, gardeners with the greatest food needs are currently not the largest producers, but could benefit from additional resources and support.

“Real Work, Real Consequences”: an action-oriented pedagogies (AOP) framework for sustainability education in K-12 classrooms - Andrea E. Weinberg; Michelle E. Jordan; Rebekah Jongewaard (Sustainability Science, 2024)

“We are protectors, not protestors”: global impacts of extractivism on human–nature bonds - Ksenija Hanaček; Dalena Tran; Arielle Landau; Teresa Sanz; May Aye Thiri; Grettel Navas; Daniela Del Bene; Juan Liu; Mariana Walter; Aida Lopez; Brototi Roy; Eleonora Fanari; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2024)
This article analyzes the global impacts of extractivism on human–nature bonds. To do so, we rely on socio-ecological conflict data from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. Over 1800 cases involving resistance to the destruction of nature, cultures, cosmologies, worldviews, ancestral origins, and sacred places are analyzed using log-linear regression compared to 1600 cases that do not report such loss. The impact is especially visible when mineral ores, plantation products, and crude oil are extracted. The results indicate that affected groups are Indigenous peoples, farmers, peasants, pastoralists, and religious groups. In conflict outcomes, 79% of cases with refusal of compensation indicate impacts on human–nature bonds. Furthermore, in those cases where assassinations of activists occurred, 68% have observed impacts on human–nature bonds. Protecting human–nature bonds is a critical component for achieving social, economic, and environmental sustainability and justice against extractivism embedded in colonial relations playing against such bonds and environmental protectors.

Emotional attachment and philosophical worldviews explain human connectedness to nature in abandoned rural Spain - C. López-Zayas; A. J. Castro; J. M. Requena-Mullor; M. D. López-Rodríguez; E. Garau; C. Quintas-Soriano (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Land abandonment and rural depopulation are escalating worldwide, presenting sustainability dilemmas for both rural and urban regions. However, there remains a dearth of research on the sociocultural dimensions of abandonment from a local standpoint. This investigation focuses on a case study conducted in southeastern Spain, wherein a social survey was used to evaluate the perspectives of local communities concerning human–nature interconnectedness, land abandonment, and their impacts on quality of life. A survey campaign was administered in the case study region during the spring of 2021, and 122 surveys were collected. The findings identify, in the context of the progressive abandonment of rural lands in Spain, key factors that explain the desire of local people to inhabit and not abandon rural regions in southeastern Spain. Our results also show a strong connection between people and nature in rural Spain, which is explained by the capacity of locals to form relational values in rural environments and the existence of philosophical worldviews and emotional attachments to rural lifestyles. However, barriers to not abandoning rural environments were also identified, including a lack of professional and economic opportunities. Our results suggest that the mitigation of depopulation in rural areas in Spain requires actions to foster land stewardship and address socioeconomic imbalances.

Mental models of aquaculture governance in Indonesia - Ben Nagel; Eva Anggraini; Nurliah Buhari; Steven Gray; Stefan Partelow; Achim Schlüter (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Aquaculture stakeholders have mental models, which are the internal cognitive representations of how they understand and prioritize the different features of their aquaculture systems. Individuals and stakeholder groups are likely to have different mental models, with implications for making cooperative governance work and guiding the rapidly emerging sector’s sustainable development. We apply a participatory approach called fuzzy cognitive mapping to capture and compare the mental models of community-based coastal pond aquaculture stakeholders in Indonesia, including farmers, government managers, and researchers who need to work together to govern a rapidly expanding aquaculture sector which faces critical sustainability challenges. To conceptually structure our comparison, we use Elinor Ostrom’s social–ecological systems framework. Our results highlight important differences between stakeholder group mental models which represent potential conflicts of interest and barriers for collaborative governance. Fish farmer models emphasize resource system challenges relating to production instability and risk, while government managers emphasize increasing production intensity to meet sectoral growth targets. Researchers, in contrast, tend to focus on pond waste treatment and water quality management. Governance attributes were consistently perceived as less frequent and less influential compared to other social–ecological dimensions, reflecting perceptions of weak governance in the sector. We identify a critical need for programs aimed at strengthening community-level institutional arrangements for governing shared aquaculture resources, increasing technical knowledge capacity, and managing financial risk. By merging all stakeholder models into a single “community” model, we identify key consensus action situations across the three groups as potential focal points for aquaculture development which may serve as a starting point for actors to work together to identify context-appropriate institutional solutions to these sustainability challenges.

Sustainability transitions in agri-food systems through the lens of agent-based modeling: a systematic review - Alba Alonso-Adame; Jef Van Meensel; Fleur Marchand; Steven Van Passel; Siavash Farahbakhsh (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Negotiating biophysical limits in the European Union’s bioeconomy: a critical analysis of two conflicts over regulating biomass use in EU policy - Benjamin Fleischmann; Andreas Mayer; Christoph Görg; Melanie Pichler (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The bioeconomy seeks to replace fossil fuels with biomass in various products and industrial sectors. The dominant political bioeconomy project focuses on economic growth and aims to increase biomass demand in the EU. This can exacerbate global land use competition and pressures on ecosystems. However, this project does not consider reducing resource use to tackle biophysical limits. Technological innovations are the means for ensuring sustainability. Few social scientific studies have investigated how actors reproduce or question the dominant bioeconomy project. We contribute to this research gap by using critical policy analysis. We explore how actors address biophysical limits and assert their positions and strategies in policy conflicts stemming from the EU bioeconomy strategy. We thereby identified two central conflicts: regulating bio-based plastics and the cascading use of biomass. Our analysis included position papers, policy documents, and expert interviews. We grouped the actors based on their positions and strategies into three political bioeconomy projects. Thus, in addition to the dominant growth-oriented project, we identified a circular and sufficiency-oriented one. Our analysis indicates that these alternative projects influenced bio-based plastics and bioenergy policies to acknowledge biophysical limits. EU policy even provides measures to reduce plastic use. Nevertheless, the Renewable Energy Directive's approach to cascading use reflects a compromise with the growth-oriented project that might not cap using primary biomass for energy. Overall, we demonstrate that there are potential alliances in promoting alternatives to the dominant bioeconomy project. Setting clear limits is constrained by powerful interests advocating for a growth-oriented bioeconomy.

The diversity of researchers’ roles in sustainability science: the influence of project characteristics - Guillaume Pajot; Benjamin Bergerot; Simon Dufour; Valérie Viaud; Christophe Cudennec; Gérard Gruau; Tassadit Bouadi; Cyrille Harpet; Jean-Raynald de Dreuzy; Nathalie Hervé-Fournereau; Véronique Van Tilbeurgh; Luc Aquilina (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Recognizing our authors - Kazuhiko Takeuchi (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Contributions of science–society interactions to spur sustainability transformations in vulnerable landscapes - Thomas Thaler; Katharina Gugerell; Claudia Bieling; Walter Musakwa (Sustainability Science, 2024)

How to close the loop with citizen scientists to advance meaningful science - Damon M. Hall; Pedro M. Avellaneda-Lopez; Darren L. Ficklin; Jason H. Knouft; Christopher Lowry (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Citizen science yields increased scientific capacity in exchange for science literacy and promises of a more responsive science to society’s needs. Yet, citizen science projects are criticized for producing few scientific outputs and having exploitative relationships with the citizens who participate. In the eagerness to capture new data, scientists can fail to see the value of citizen scientists’ expertise beyond data generation and can forget to close the loop with outputs that benefit the public interest. Citizen scientists are experts in their local environments who, when asked, can improve scientific processes and products. To the degree that citizen scientists are relegated to data collection, we shortchange opportunities to advance science. Rather than merely critique, we present an evidence-based engagement approach for listening to citizen scientist participants and incorporating their input into science processes and products that can be retrofitted onto existing citizen science projects or integrated from a project’s inception. We offer this adaptable blueprint in four steps and illustrate this approach via a crowdsourced hydrology project on the Boyne River, USA. We show how engaging voices of citizen scientists at key points in the project improves both the products of science (a real-time ecohydrological model) and the process of conducting the science (adaptations to help improve data collection). Distinct from outreach or education, considering citizen scientists as an equally interesting site of inquiry can improve the practice and outputs of science.

Designing for collective action: a knowledge co-production process to address water governance challenges on the island of Öland, Sweden - Carolin Seiferth; Maria Tengö; Erik Andersson (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Enabling diverse actors to address interlinked sustainability issues is important and challenging. This paper focuses on how to design a dialogue-based knowledge co-production process to nurture collective action. Using the conceptualization of systems, target, and operational knowledge as the guiding framework, we designed and combined different complementary activities to invite actors to look at a wicked problem through multiple lenses and reflect on their own positions, perspectives, knowledge, and values. With a carefully documented workshop series held with local actors on Öland, Sweden, as our empirical case study, we demonstrate how we moved from exploring the multifunctionality of landscapes and understanding actors’ different values, preferences, and priorities, to developing four strategies for effectively accelerating and expanding efforts to adapt to climate change. Our study reveals how the process of mobilizing, articulating, and connecting individually held systems, target, and operational knowledge nurtures collective action. It also leverages dialogue-based processes as cornerstones in addressing sustainability challenges in an inclusive and equitable way.

Unravelling stakeholder narratives on nature-based solutions for hydro-meteorological risk reduction - Sungju Han; Anran Luo (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Despite growing scholarly consensus on the need for nature-based solutions (NBS) as holistic and sustainable alternatives to traditional engineering solutions, stakeholder acceptance and implementation of NBS remain low. This study investigates stakeholder narratives on implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) for mitigating hydro-meteorological risks across five European river basin sites in Eastern and Central Europe. Utilising the Q-methodology and narrative analysis, we identified three ideal–typical narratives: idealist, reformist, and sceptic—each providing distinct perspectives on evidence-based policy formation and NBS integration. Our results demonstrate that: (1) idealists’ optimistic outlook risks overlooking critical engagement with implementation challenges; (2) neglecting sceptic concerns may impede NBS adoption and invite accusations of green-washing, and (3) reformists promote evidence-based approaches and transparent stakeholder engagement to bridge narrative divides. The study underscores the importance of identifying shared values, stakeholder collaboration, and a nuanced understanding of contextual factors in fostering NBS implementation. The study contributes to a practical framework aligning NBS projects with prevailing narratives, offering guidance for navigating the complex landscape of NBS implementation. Future research should prioritize in-depth analysis of agent perspectives, place-specific influences on narratives, and the application of narrative analysis to other emerging technologies and environmental topics (e.g. circular economy), deepening our understanding of the socio-political dynamics shaping the acceptance and implementation of sustainable solutions.

Hearing, listening, and learning: how bioeconomy triple helix clusters deal with uninvited societal input - Jan R. Starke; Tamara A. P. Metze; Jeroen J. L. Candel; Katrien J. A. M. Termeer (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Policymakers in the European Union embrace collaborations of businesses, governments, and academia to develop a sustainable and circular bioeconomy. These so-called Triple Helix clusters aim to stimulate innovation and learning. However, Triple Helix collaborators also face conflicting perspectives on the desirability and directionality of the bioeconomy transition, either within a cluster or with societal actors affected by a cluster’s innovations. While previous Triple Helix research focussed on how to broaden the cluster collaboration towards a more inclusive range of actors to handle such contestations, we study how cluster partners deal with uninvited input from societal actors that do not form part of a cluster. We conceptualize this input as societal back talk and distinguish organizational hearing, listening, and learning capabilities to explore how back talk contributes to innovation in three bioeconomy clusters in the Netherlands, Germany, and Ireland. Our qualitative case study analysis is based on interview transcripts, newspaper articles, and policy and planning documents. Results indicate that collaborating partners generally do not hear uninvited back talk that fundamentally challenges their tacit beliefs, because partners focus on informing the public about what they consider techno-economic benefits of their projects. As a consequence, collaborators become ‘insiders’, which hinders listening to divergent problem definitions and alternative solutions of ‘outsiders’. Learning from uninvited back talk is therefore restricted to minor adjustments. To avoid innovative solutions remaining unexplored as a result of this discursive lock-in, Triple Helix collaborators must engage in hearing and listening to critical societal actors by establishing a reflective, two-directional dialogue.

NUS so fast: the social and ecological implications of a rapidly developing indigenous food economy in the Cape Town area - Jenny Willis; Bruno Losch; Laura M. Pereira (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The modern global food system is highly unsustainable, shaped by industrialisation and corporate consolidation, with negative repercussions on the environment and biodiversity as well as human health. This paper looks at the burgeoning economy in neglected and underutilised species (NUS) in the Western Cape, South Africa, as a potential innovation that could make the local food system more socially and ecologically resilient. Although, at present, NUS are only marginally included in the local food system and policy discussions, NUS increasingly appear in the high-end food industry, driven by international gastronomic trends. These species hold potential as climate resilient, nutritionally dense, and socially and culturally significant foods in the region, but they also carry ecological and social risks. We critically examine the fledgling NUS economy in the Cape Town area to unpack the motivations and challenges associated with the potentially transformative inclusion of these foods into the local food system. We demonstrate that the main risks associated with NUS are negative ecological repercussions, privatisation of the NUS economy, and the reproduction and further entrenchment of unequal power and race dynamics in the region. To mitigate these risks and actualise the related benefits associated with NUS, engagement with the ecological, social, and political context of NUS needs to be significantly deepened. This is particularly true for those working in the high-end food industry, who appear to be driving the NUS economy, and will require education around sustainability and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), as well as a foregrounding awareness of power dynamics.

Sufficiency policy: a definition, conceptual framework, and application to municipalities - Tonja Iten; Irmi Seidl; Marco Pütz (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Compared to the prevailing sustainability strategies of efficiency and consistency, sufficiency is poorly represented both in scientific literature and in political debate but has increasingly gained attention in recent years. However, the discussion lacks a uniform understanding on sufficiency policy and how to conceptualize it. Furthermore, the sufficiency scholarship neglects the role of municipalities in realizing sufficiency policies. This article, thus, examines three questions: how is sufficiency policy understood in the literature? How can sufficiency policy be conceptualized? And what does sufficiency policy mean at the municipal level? In the course of a systematic literature review, we determine a sample of 111 publications on sufficiency policy and identify an ecological, social, and action-oriented dimension of sufficiency understanding. After discussing sufficiency as policy, we synthesize our findings with a definition and conceptual framework of sufficiency policy. Last, we apply the framework at the municipal level and compile a total of 198 municipal sufficiency policy measures. We find that municipalities have numerous levers to pursue sufficiency policy, both in terms of instruments and sectors. The article presents—to our knowledge—the first systematic literature review on sufficiency policy. It advances our understanding of sufficiency as policy in general and at municipal level in particular. The conceptual framework offers a departure point for further empirical research on (municipal) sufficiency policy.

Mountain research for sustainability: where are we and where to go? - Anna Zango Palau; Bernat Claramunt-López (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Mountains have socio-economic and environmental importance for the entire world, and they are also one of the regions most threatened by global change. As mountains are systems in which the human and nature dimensions are tightly interconnected, studying them as social–ecological systems (SES) is increasingly common. To date, a variety of approaches and frameworks have been used to study mountain SES, making comparisons across mountain areas challenging. In this paper, we use Ostrom’s SES framework to review the mountain SES peer-reviewed literature under a common scope, aiming at unraveling which frameworks, approaches, domains, sectors, and elements are studied by researchers. Among the 169 reviewed manuscripts, only 28% of them employed a framework to study their system, and custom-made frameworks were preferred over existing ones. Although most research articles were in the domain of environmental sciences, socio-economic attributes were included more often than ecological ones, and more than 30% did not combine social and ecological information. Moreover, albeit most manuscripts had an empirical approach, field data were seldomly used. Future works should focus on collecting social and ecological data at comparable scales, as well as on developing tools to effectively integrate both dimensions in mountain SES studies. Finally, we examine components of mountain socio-ecological systems commonly addressed in literature, highlighting important elements for overall and sector-specific sustainability. Regarding social aspects, understanding local inhabitants’ diverse perspectives and socioeconomic context is crucial. In terms of ecological elements, describing climatic patterns and ecosystem history is key.

Knowledge based interventions for sustainable development cooperation: insights from knowledge systems mapping in Zambia - L. Suchá; L. Dušková; J. Leventon; A. Seidlová; Š. Bubák; Z. V. Harmáčková (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Knowledge is an essential determinant and component of the international development cooperation agenda and projects. Therefore, it is vital to understand and reflect on how knowledge in international development cooperation is created, what knowledge counts, and how it influences the planning, implementation, and outcomes of international development cooperation projects. In this paper, we critically examine the knowledge system of the development cooperation of the Czech Republic, an emerging donor country, by applying system theory and utilizing system properties as an analytical tool. To this end, we carried out a multi-phase qualitative research with actors from the Czech Republic and Zambia. Subsequently, we analysed the knowledge system properties and identified those often overlooked by development actors, such as taboos, mistrust, and development burden, revealing how knowledge flows can be obstructed by these characteristics. In addition, we compiled a set of suitable interventions to tackle the overlooked system properties and foster knowledge cross-fertilisation. These interventions include, among others, active engagement of traditional leaders, active work with narratives of success, and introducing action-reflection-reaction cycle into the development practice. Furthermore, the proposed interventions clearly emphasize the need for more collaborative and transdisciplinary processes. Finally, we discuss that it is essential to uncover deep layers of the international development cooperation knowledge system to shift and leverage it towards more inclusive and just outcomes.

Using novel data and ensemble models to improve automated labeling of Sustainable Development Goals - Dirk U. Wulff; Dominik S. Meier; Rui Mata (Sustainability Science, 2024)
A number of labeling systems based on text have been proposed to help monitor work on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Here, we present a systematic comparison of prominent SDG labeling systems using a variety of text sources and show that these differ considerably in their sensitivity (i.e., true-positive rate) and specificity (i.e., true-negative rate), have systematic biases (e.g., are more sensitive to specific SDGs relative to others), and are susceptible to the type and amount of text analyzed. We then show that an ensemble model that pools SDG labeling systems alleviates some of these limitations, exceeding the performance of the individual SDG labeling systems considered. We conclude that researchers and policymakers should care about the choice of the SDG labeling system and that ensemble methods should be favored when drawing conclusions about the absolute and relative prevalence of work on the SDGs based on automated methods.

Bridging the nature–cultural heritage gap: evaluating sustainable entanglements through cemeteries in urban Asia - David Ocón; Wei Ping Young (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The expanding footprint of urban Asian settlements and increasing living standards have put pressure on cemetery sites. Public health narratives and the sanctity associated with death matters in Asian urban landscapes have fed into the rhetoric of cemeteries as undesirable heritage spaces. Often lacking protection, many cemeteries have been exhumed, cleared, and relocated to allow room for new developments and infrastructure, risking the survival of this quiet element of the urban cultural patrimony. Within an Asian context, synergies between nature and cultural heritage preservation are not prevalent in major cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok. In light of increasing recognition of urban cemeteries as multi-valued sites with both natural and cultural heritage values, this paper turns to deconstructing the nature–cultural binary and the concept of entanglement to frame an investigation of collaborative interactions. A focused study on Asian urban cemeteries follows, examining existing trends and adapted mix uses and highlighting the region’s unique conservation challenges. The analysis reveals three major typologies encapsulating the region’s current nature–cultural heritage entangled preservation approaches: sustainable compromises, memories, and everyday sustainability. To conclude, the paper distils respectful alternative futures for these spaces to be better integrated into the modern textures of the cities, unlocking functional recourses to destruction or oblivion.

Mapping the evolving research landscape of sustainability science from 2006 to 2023: unveiling its transformation - Mesfin Sahle; Shruti Ashish Lahoti; So-Young Lee; Chiho Kamiyama; Xiaoyang Tan; Raffaela Kozar; Osamu Saito; Kazuhiko Takeuchi (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Knowledge uptake from lived experience regarding sustainable groundwater management: complementing scientific knowledge in urban policymaking - Karin Nettenbreijers; Ellen Tromp; Paquita Perez (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Urbanization can pose water management challenges in cities while overlooking the possibilities of residents’ lived experience and collaborative action learning. We show how the conceptual model of the Lived Experience of Sustainable Urban Groundwater Level identifies several aspects of local knowledge development through an ex-post case study in Rotterdam’s Flower Neighbourhood (The Netherlands), where too low groundwater levels threaten house foundations. Three types of local knowledge development emerged: (i) performing and monitoring well measurements by residents, (ii) environment-specific insights collected by residents and shared with civil servants, and (iii) collaboration on groundwater management experiments, resulting in empirical groundwater data. Overcoming communication barriers, trust issues, and power dynamics are crucial for effectively retrieving and integrating lived experience into collective learning for urban sustainable development.

Standardization in the context of transdisciplinarity - Knut Blind (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Transdisciplinarity is an integrative approach that includes different scientific disciplines as well as stakeholders and researchers to tackle both societal and scientific challenges. Since standards are jointly developed by science, business, and other stakeholders, standardization can be perceived as a specific mode of transdisciplinarity. In the discussion on knowledge transfer as a further performance dimension for researchers, participation in standardization procedures is now also being considered as a further channel, albeit without a sound conceptual and empirical basis. The paper thus aims to provide a conceptual base of standardization as a transdisciplinary knowledge production mode and transfer channel but also gives an outlook on its empirical implementation. The literature review on transdisciplinarity helps us to put standardization into the context of transdisciplinary research and to present a conceptual model of standardization as transdisciplinary knowledge production and transfer. Further, we present the first methodological approaches for the empirical analysis of the transdisciplinary character of standardization. Finally, we conclude with a summary, a number of recommendations derived from transdisciplinary research for standardization, and an outlook toward future research to be tackled with the proposed methodologies.

Understanding Japan's Land-use Dynamics between 1987 and 2050 using Land Accounting and Scenario Analysis - Wanhui Huang; Shizuka Hashimoto; Takehito Yoshida; Osamu Saito; Gowhar Meraj (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Amidst global concerns about land use change and its far-reaching impact on biodiversity and human well-being, there is a growing need to understand how land use stock and flow changes over time through land use accounting. While existing studies on land accounting have focused on historical land changes, little attention has been paid to future transitions. This study assessed historical patterns and projected future shifts in land use dynamics from 1987 to 2050 across Japan by combining high-resolution land use and land cover datasets, land change simulations, and land accounting. In the analyses, particular attention was paid to the historical and future trends of farmland abandonment by leveraging data at 100-m resolution built on national vegetation surveys. High-resolution analysis of farmland abandonment issue with national scale in Japan is a novelty. From 1987 to 1998, the land stock analysis results showed a pronounced marked increase in residential land (10.4%) and grassland (16.9%); the flow analysis results showed that urban residential sprawl expansion was mainly formed by secondary (32.6%) and plantation (21.1%) forest areas, coinciding with increasing population and economic growth. Projections from 2010 to 2050 indicate a marked increase in abandoned farmland (67.2% per decade), a trend influenced by rapid population decline and presumably agricultural policies, especially significant in regions such as Hokkaido and Kyushu. The findings of this study are crucial for shaping policy and decision-making, underlining the need for sustainable land management strategies that effectively balance urban growth, agricultural productivity, and environmental preservation in Japan.

ORF, an operational framework to measure resilience in social–ecological systems: the forest case study - Francisco Lloret; Pilar Hurtado; Josep Maria Espelta; Luciana Jaime; Laura Nikinmaa; Marcus Lindner; Jordi Martínez-Vilalta (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Resilience is commonly addressed when dealing with the sustainable planning and management of social–ecological systems, but we lack a unified framework for its quantitative assessment and application. We present an operational resilience framework (ORF) based on recognizing and relating several elements: system variables (e.g., ecosystem services), disturbances and stressors acting at given spatiotemporal scales, a reference state, and metrics comparing the observed system variables to the reference state. These elements fit into a rationale aimed at identifying resilience predictors suitable to be managed and co-drivers which describe non-manageable context, reflecting the mechanisms involved in resilience. By a systematic search of the presence of the ORF concepts in 453 empirical studies assessing resilience, we corroborate that ORF can be applied to studies on forest social–ecological systems. This literature survey shows that ORF elements are commonly recognized, although the logical narrative relating them is not always explicit, particularly in socioeconomic-focused studies. We advocate that the proposed ORF allows to standardize the terminology and to frame and measure resilience, allowing sounder comparisons and better-supported recommendations for the improvement of resilience in social–ecological systems, particularly in forest systems.

Regional comparison of the structure of human well-being related to ecosystem services in coastal areas of Japan: possible effect of anxiety unique to the ria coast - Jun Shoji; Juri Hori; Takashi Kitagawa; Ryo Sugimoto; Mitsutaku Makino (Sustainability Science, 2024)
People living in coastal areas have the advantage of accessing a high level of ecosystem services, but are also exposed to the dangers inherent in living by the sea in an area prone to natural disasters. To achieve sustainable utilization of the high ecosystem services of coastal areas, establishment of an effective marine policy based on regional characteristics of human–nature interactions is essential. We compared the structure of perceived satisfaction for five components of human well-being (‘Security’, ‘Basic material for a good life’, ‘Good social relations’, ‘Health’, and ‘Freedom of choice and action’) derived from coastal ecosystem services among three sites in Japan (Wakasa, Sanriku, and Shima) that share the same natural and social backgrounds: highly dependent on fisheries industry, located in the same climate regime (temperate zone), and have similar topographical features (ria coast). Structural equation modeling using the results from questionnaire surveys showed that the three sites shared a common basic structure of the interactions among the five components of human well-being. However, the intensity of interactions among components differed among the three sites. Questionnaire surveys on anxiety about natural disasters and future access to marine ecosystem services were simultaneously conducted at the three sites. The site-specific anxieties were responsible for the difference in the interactions among the five components of human well-being. We propose a method that quantitatively evaluates both positive (satisfaction) and negative (anxiety) aspects of respondents’ subjective assessment as a useful tool for understanding the diversity of human–nature interactions caused by the region-specific natural and social backgrounds of coastal areas.

“Take your responsibility”: the politics of green sacrifice for just low-carbon transitions in rural Portugal - Dominique van Meer; Christos Zografos (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The EU has recently taken important climate action, notably through the launching of the European Green Deal. However, EU action has been criticized for its potential to generate a heavy increase in mining of ‘critical minerals’ necessary for renewables technologies, and so create green sacrifice zones both overseas and within Europe. We explore the politics of green sacrifice making through an analysis of green governance practices and opposition to them in a case of a lithium mining conflict in rural northern Portugal. We find that institutional rearrangements attempt to reconfigure lithium mining as a force for sustainability in ways that enable capital accumulation. Such reconfigurations clash with concerns about maintaining a meaningful life in localities where mining would take place, as well as alternative definitions of the logic of the circular economy and of what the proper scales of decision-making for marginalized territories should be. Government and corporate action attempt to resolve these clashes by promoting a discourse of ‘responsibility’, which assigns public institutions the role of convincing communities to accept ‘green’ mining; to corporations the role of exercising corporate social responsibility; and to affected populations the role of subjects whose political action should conform to their consumption habits and help deliver a distinctive ‘European way’ of being responsible in a warming world. We conclude that green sacrifice is essential for maintaining economic growth and a liberal order of governance, delivered through a biopolitics of inclusion that exists side-by-side with attempts at self-constitution. We highlight a contradiction between what such praxis tries to achieve and ways in which some critical constituencies seek to address democracy challenges of just transitions.

Embodying relationality through immersive sustainability solutions with Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon - Antonia Polheim; David Manuel-Navarrete; Janna Goebel; Jacqueline Loos (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Co-creating coastal sustainability goals and indicators - Sigrid Engen; Vera Helene Hausner; Eirik Mikkelsen; Hege Gundersen; Hartvig Christie; Jannike Falk-Andersson; Benjamin S. Halpern; Per Fauchald (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Indicators can be powerful tools to measure progress towards achieving societal goals, and many indicators have been developed for sustainability goals nationally and internationally. When indicators are developed solely through top-down approaches without engaging local knowledge, they often fall short of capturing local perceptions and concerns relevant to decision-making. The aim of this project was to co-create a Coastal Barometer and its component indicators, together with local knowledge-holders and communities, using the Ocean Health Index as a framework. As a first step, local knowledge-holders from six communities dispersed across Northern Norway were invited to articulate local sustainability goals and the required knowledge for eight broad topics pertaining to global OHI goals: small-scale fisheries, food production, sense of place, tourism, food production, clean waters, carbon storage and economy and livelihoods. In this paper, our main focus is the co-design phase of the Coastal Barometer, namely eliciting sustainability goals. We thus, present locally desired sustainability goals and sub-goals and the process of eliciting these goals. We also include suggestions from local knowledge-holders on how to reach these goals (i.e. proposed management measures), along with researchers’ assessment of data availability (part of the co-production process) for developing indicators to measure progress towards these goals. Finally, we discuss the benefits and challenges of co-developing sustainability goals and indicators with local knowledge-holders. We conclude that co-design can increase the quality of sustainability assessments by enriching the view of coastal sustainability. This knowledge can subsequently be used to align indicators with local sustainability goals as well as to the local context where the indicators will be applied.

A systematic review of peer-reviewed gender literature in sustainability science - Elisabeth Frank; Rike Mühlhaus; Katinka Malena Mustelin; Esther Lara Trilken; Noemi Katalin Kreuz; Linda Catharine Bowes; Lina Marie Backer; Henrik von Wehrden (Sustainability Science, 2024)
We conducted a systematic review of the available peer-reviewed literature that specifically focuses on the combination of sustainability and gender. We analyzed the existing peer-reviewed research regarding the extent to which gender plays a role in the empirical literature, how this is methodologically collected and what understanding of gender is applied in those articles. Our aim is to provide an overview of the current most common fields of research and thus show in which areas gender is already being included in the sustainability sciences and to what extent and in which areas this inclusion has not yet taken place or has only taken place to a limited extent. We identified 1054 papers that matched our criteria and conducted research on at least one sustainable development goal and gender research. Within these papers (i), the overall number of countries where lead authors were located was very high (91 countries). While the majority of lead authors were located in the Global North, less than a third of the articles were led by authors located in the Global South. Furthermore, gender is often just used as a category of empirical analysis rather than a research focus. We were able to identify (ii) a lack in coherent framing of relevant terms. Often no definition of sustainability was given, and only the sustainability goals (SDGs or MDGs) were used as a framework to refer to sustainability. Both gender and sustainability were often used as key words without being specifically addressed. Concerning the knowledge types of sustainability, our expectation that system knowledge dominates the literature was confirmed. While a problem orientation dominates much of the discourse, only a few papers focus on normative or transformative knowledge. (iii) Furthermore, the investigated literature was mainly contributing to few SDGs, with SDG 5 ‘Gender Equality’ accounting for 83% of all contributions, followed by SDG 8 ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’ (21%), SDG 3 ‘Good Health and Well-being’ (15%) and SDG 4 ‘Quality Education’ (12%). We were additionally able to identify seven research clusters in the landscape of gender in sustainability science. (iv) A broad range of diverse methods was utilized that allow us to approximate different forms of knowledge. Yet within different research clusters, the spectrum of methodologies is rather homogeneous. (v) Overall, in most papers gender is conceptualized in binary terms. In most cases, the research is explicitly about women, running the risk that gender research in sustainability sciences grows into a synonym for women's studies.

Conducting sustainability research in the anthropocene: toward a relational approach - Jessica Böhme; Eva-Maria Spreitzer; Christine Wamsler (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Scholars and practitioners are urgently highlighting the need to apply a relational approach to effectively address societal crises. At the same time, little is known about the associated challenges, and there is little advice regarding how to operationalize this approach in sustainability science. Against this background, this article explores how we can break out of our current paradigms and approaches, and instead apply relational thinking, being, and acting in the way we conduct research. To achieve this, we systematically list all major research phases, and assess possible pathways for integrating a relational paradigm for each step. We show that moving toward a relational paradigm requires us to methodically question and redefine existing theories of change, concepts, and approaches, for instance by combining abductive reasoning, first-person inquiries, and decentering the human through critical complexity theory. Challenging mainstream thought, and daring to ask different questions in each step is crucial to ultimately shift scientific norms and systems. Hence, we offer a catalog of questions that may help to systematically integrate relational being, thinking, and acting into the process, as a tool for transforming current paradigms in research, and associated education and practice. Finally, we highlight the importance of further research to develop and refine our outcomes.

A multi-case institutional analysis of water–energy–food nexus governance - J. Leah Jones-Crank (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Panarchy to explore land use: a historical case study from the Peruvian Amazon - Elisabeth G. Lagneaux; Daniel Callo-Concha; Erika N. Speelman; Katrien Descheemaeker (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The overexploitation of natural resources is an important driver of the global environmental crisis. The scientific community engages in an ongoing debate about the most suitable frameworks for analyzing trends in land use. In this paper, we use the conceptual lens of the adaptive cycle and panarchy to explore complex social–ecological dynamics in the Peruvian Amazon. Through an extensive literature review and interviews with key informants, we provide a historical analysis of extractive activities over the last two centuries in the department of Madre de Dios, Peru. We identify periods of growth, conservation, and sometimes release and reorganization for each resource and for the overall social–ecological system. We identify a general trend toward more diversification in extractive activities over time and inter-scale linkages between adaptive cycles of different time and space scales. Based on these results, we explore future development, hypothesize a possible domination of the agricultural sector, and suggest that land-use policies and management interventions should draw from past lessons to design adaptive land planning. Finally, we present new evidence highlighting the relevance of panarchy for understanding historical changes in complex social–ecological systems and demonstrate its utility in exploring both past land use and future development.

Whole Institution Approach: measurable and highly effective in empowering learners and educators for sustainability - Jorrit Holst; Julius Grund; Antje Brock (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Whole Institution Approaches (WIAs) to sustainability in education emphasize the strong link between the socio-physical environment and the learning processes and outcomes. However, there has been a lack of instruments for quantifying the implementation of WIAs based on the experience of learners and educators. In this article, we present the systematic development, pretesting, validation and first application of a novel WIA-Scale (learners: 13 items, educators: 15 items). As part of a large-scale assessment in Germany (school education, vocational education and higher education; n = 2,985), we apply the WIA-Scale and assess how WIAs are related to the effectiveness of sustainability learning. Based on extensive validation, the scale quality was evaluated as high. The application showed that young people who experience more sustainability in line with the WIA feel strongly more motivated and empowered by their educational institution to contribute to sustainability. Also, regression modeling revealed that WIA implementation is the strongest of various predictors of how sustainable learners act beyond the educational institution. Further, educators who experience more sustainability in line with the WIA feel considerably more motivated and report more sustainable behavior. They also view Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as more relevant and participate more frequently in training on ESD. For future use, we provide the WIA-Scale in its original version, a 7/8-item variant and a one-item proxy. The scale may be used as a process indicator for high-quality sustainability education and as part of organizational development. Overall, the study shows that experienced WIAs are measurable and highly effective for quality sustainability learning.

Radical and incremental, a multi-leverage point approach to transformation in ocean governance - Tegan Evans; Stephen Fletcher; Pierre Failler; Ruth Fletcher; Jonathan Potts (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Urgent change is required in the governance of ocean spaces to contend with the increasing presence and impact of human activities, the solution to which is often labelled a ‘transformation.’ While diverse interpretations of this concept exist across academic disciplines, a grounded exploration of the subject with those involved in ocean governance has not been undertaken and is a critical gap in the practical implementation of the concept. Leverage points have been not only identified as a mechanism for change, but also face similar research challenges. Therefore, this research aimed to identify, through 24 expert and practitioner interviews, what exactly transformation means in the context of ocean governance, and how it can be achieved through a leverage points approach. While reactions to and perceptions of the concept were mixed, several definitions of transformation were identified, ultimately hinging on incremental and radical change to define character. A multi-intervention ‘puzzle’ style of leverage points is advocated for. Therefore, ocean governance transformation is proposed to be achieved through a model that recognises the utility and benefits of both radical and incremental change and employs a multi-leverage approach, using interventions at varying depths across the system.

Achieving transformational change through the consilience of behavioral science and radical alternatives - Daniel J. Read; Matthew J. Selinske (Sustainability Science, 2024)
The integration of behavioral science into conservation science and climate science has enabled the development of both novel research questions and practical interventions. However, most behavioral interventions aim to change private, individual behaviors, rather than transform the political economic systems that drive current biodiversity, climate, and social crises. In this paper, we argue that closer collaboration between behavioral scientists working on biodiversity and climate issues, on the one hand, and advocates for radical alternatives to current political economic systems, on the other, could advance such needed systemic transformation. While the work of both groups is subject to some critique, we suggest that closer collaboration could enable the strengths of each to address the others’ weaknesses. This complementarity is particularly true when behavioral interventions are co-designed with advocates and targeted towards powerful individuals whose behavior could affect systems-level transformation. We use the fossil fuel divestment movement as an illustrative example of one way in which this collaboration could be mutually beneficial, and then outline potential political, practical, and ethical implications that may accompany such collaborations in the biodiversity conservation and climate change fields.

Reimagining the language of engagement in a post-stakeholder world - Mark S. Reed; Bethann Garramon Merkle; Elizabeth J. Cook; Caitlin Hafferty; Adam P. Hejnowicz; Richard Holliman; Ian D. Marder; Ursula Pool; Christopher M. Raymond; Kenneth E. Wallen; David Whyte; Marta Ballesteros; et al. (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Language matters in shaping perceptions and guiding behaviour. The term stakeholder is widely used, yet little attention is paid to the possibility that its use may inadvertently perpetuate colonial narratives and reinforce systemic inequities. In this article, we critically examine the limitations of the stakeholder concept and its ambiguity, normativity, and exclusionary implications. We emphasise the importance of using language that gives a voice to marginalised groups, promotes inclusion and equity, and fosters meaningful and reflexive participation in decision-making processes. In critiquing the use of the term and calling for alternative practices, we aim to contribute to the decolonisation of research norms and the creation of more inclusive and equitable societies. Therefore, rather than advocating a single alternative term, we suggest a focus on the people, places, and species affected by decisions, interventions, projects, and issues.

Correction: Longitudinal analysis of home food production and food sharing behavior in Japan: multiple benefits of local food systems and the recent impact of the COVID-19 pandemic - Chiho Kamiyama; Keiko Hori; Takanori Matsui; Jules Pretty; Osamu Saito (Sustainability Science, 2024)

Combining the multi-level perspective framework with participatory scenario development to explore the many facets of food system transitions in Germany - Valentin Fiala; Klaus Jacob (Sustainability Science, 2024)
Transitions to more sustainable food systems are urgently needed, but they are also very complex and hard to achieve. The integration of transdisciplinary approaches into transition research can help to understand and promote sustainable food system transitions, but remains an agenda item in this research field. To fill this gap, this article describes how the multi-level perspective (MLP) can be used as a framework for explorative, participatory scenario development. On the one hand, MLP provides scholars with a framework for understanding the dynamics of transitions. On the other hand, participatory scenario development brings together academic and non-academic actors and perspectives to explore and promote possible development pathways. Based on this framework, researchers and practitioners jointly co-created four scenarios of how the landscape of five relevant European food innovations located in established food systems or niches (alternative sources of proteins, prosumer initiatives, regional value chains, school meal programs, and dietary interventions) might change by 2040 and further explored how these food innovations might evolve under the scenarios. The results provide initial insights into the role that food innovations could play in different transition pathways and also indicate the value of a diverse portfolio of food innovations to respond to changing circumstances. Furthermore, the process allowed participants to develop a shared understanding of food system dynamics and explore potential future risks and opportunities for food innovations, showing that participatory scenarios based on the MLP framework are a useful lens for exploring sustainable food system transitions.