− ESG–Agency scholarship highlights the multiscalar and multilevel dynamics of earth system governance, with particular focus on the institutional and geographic scales.− Agents in earth system governance deploy diverse strategies and mechanisms, such as networks, bridging organisations, and orchestration, to navigate across global to local levels and ecological, social, economic, and political scales.− Whether multilevel and multiscalar dynamics enable or constrain agency in earth system governance depends on power dynamics and the resource capacities of agents.− Future research should examine the role of agents in political struggles related to the social construction of levels and scales in earth system governance.