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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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