Transforming towards global sustainability requires a dramatic acceleration of social change. Hence, there is growing interest in finding ‘positive tipping points’ at which small interventions can trigger self-reinforcing feedbacks that accelerate systemic change. Examples have recently been seen in power generation and personal transport, but how can we identify positive tipping points that have yet to occur? We synthesise theory and examples to provide initial guidelines for creating enabling conditions, sensing when a system can be positively tipped, who can trigger it, and how they can trigger it. All of us can play a part in triggering positive tipping points.

Recent work on positive tipping points towards sustainability has focused on social-technological systems and the agency of policymakers to tip change, whilst earlier work identified social-ecological positive feedbacks triggered by diverse actors. We bring these together to consider positive tipping points across social-technological-ecological systems and the potential for multiple actors and interventions to trigger them. Established theory and examples provide several generic mechanisms for triggering tipping points. From these we identify specific enabling conditions, reinforcing feedbacks, actors and interventions that can contribute to triggering positive tipping points in the adoption of sustainable behaviours and technologies. Actions that can create enabling conditions for positive tipping include targeting smaller populations, altering social network structure, providing relevant information, reducing price, improving performance, desirability and accessibility, and coordinating complementary technologies. Actions that can trigger positive tipping include social, technological and ecological innovations, policy interventions, public investment, private investment, broadcasting public information, and behavioural nudges. Positive tipping points can help counter widespread feelings of disempowerment in the face of global challenges and help unlock ‘paralysis by complexity’. A key research agenda is to consider how different agents and interventions can most effectively work together to create system-wide positive tipping points whilst ensuring a just transformation.

We identify key actors and actions that can enable and trigger positive tipping points towards global sustainability.

Small and medium enterprises generate an elevated environmental footprint, which requires green transformation to achieve sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to describe the intervention process in 120 microenterprises with the aim of improving environmental and sustainability performance in four categories: sustainability, water, energy and solid waste management to determine the importance to promote the sustainability process in this sector as a key factor to contribute to the inclusion and sustainable development.

Global small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent 90% of global business, creating and maintaining 50% of employment, and in emerging economies, formal SMEs provide 40% of the national gross domestic product and the gap of productivity is approximately 7% of global gross domestic product with respect to large firms. This study analyses the strategies and possibilities to improve sustainability in 120 microenterprises. The project included five stages: the postulation, selection and enrolment; sustainability diagnosis; action plan formulation; the results of implementation and evaluation and the feedback on results. This study demonstrated the importance of integrating sustainability into the business to improve productivity, competitiveness and access to new markets; in many cases, the microentrepreneur is unaware of all possibilities offered by having environmentally friendly processes, which was shown with evidence throughout the study. Approximately 242 action plans were implemented, achieving multiple results that involved knowledge of processes and equipment of microenterprises to measure and improve their environmental performance. The findings of this study demonstrated that microenterprises require adequate support and financial programmes that should be designed and implemented by policymakers with the aim of strengthening this sector, decreasing poverty and promoting sustainable economic growth, environmentally friendly processes and development in developing countries.

Microenterprises have an important role in the economy and have the potential to achieve sustainability processes.

By distinguishing between developed and less developed nations, the concept of development subtly establishes hierarchies and a supposed comparability, which is highly ambivalent from a socio-ethical point of view. The idea of holistic development in Catholic social teaching focus on cultural dimensions and therefore sets an important counter accent to the fixation on socio-technically producible and countable things. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lack a coherence between the social and the ecological components as well as a naming of power conflicts. For a power-critical, postcolonial and participatory concept of development, their interpretation could learn substantially from the encyclical Laudato si'.

The paradigm of development is subjected to a radical critique in parts of the academic debate: Is the idea of development, which in a gesture of aid divides the world into “developed” and “underdeveloped” nations and thus establishes a hierarchy, still politically and morally justifiable at all? Has this concept possibly become a backdoor to prolong the old colonial power relations into the 21st century, even to increase them in some cases? Is development one of the great utopias of the 20th century that promised freedom and brought division? Is the ecological overexploitation of global resources the inevitable reverse side of the spread of the Western model of prosperity disguised as “development”? Do the SDGs act subcutaneously as enablers of Western imperial power, or do they represent a genuine paradigm shift? This article explores these questions in four steps: 1. Is the age of development is over? 2. The ideal of “integral development” – steps of a revision process 3. In the tension between ecological and social goals: A Comparison of the “Sustainable Development Goals” and the Encyclical Laudato si' 4. Priorities and strategies of a “post-utopian development policy”.

The shadows of colonial thinking are still effective today in development concepts fixated on countable factors of socioeconomic efficiency.

Many conservation initiatives call for ‘transformative change’ to counter biodiversity loss, climate change, and injustice. The term connotes fundamental, broad, and durable changes to human relationships with nature. However, if oversimplified or overcomplicated, or not focused enough on power and the political action necessary for change, associated initiatives can perpetuate or exacerbate existing crises. This article aims to help practitioners deliberately catalyze and steer transformation processes. It provides a theoretically and practically grounded definition of ‘transformative conservation’, along with six strategic, interlocking recommendations. These cover systems pedagogy, political mobilization, inner transformation, as well as planning, action, and continual adjustment.

Calls for ‘transformative change’ point to the fundamental reorganization necessary for global conservation initiatives to stem ecological catastrophe. However, the concept risks being oversimplified or overcomplicated, and focusing too little on power and the political action necessary for change. Accordingly, its intersection with contemporary biodiversity and climate change mitigation initiatives needs explicit deliberation and clarification. This article advances the praxis of ‘transformative conservation’ as both (1) a desired process that rethinks the relationships between individuals, society, and nature, and restructures systems accordingly, and (2) a desired outcome that conserves biodiversity while justly transitioning to net zero emission economies and securing the sustainable and regenerative use of natural resources. It first reviews criticisms of area-based conservation targets, natural climate solutions, and nature-based solutions that are framed as transformative, including issues of ecological integrity, livelihoods, gender, equity, growth, power, participation, knowledge, and governance. It then substantiates six strategic recommendations designed to help practitioners deliberately steer transformation processes. These include taking a systems approach; partnering with political movements to achieve equitable and just transformation; linking societal with personal (‘inner’) transformation; updating how we plan; facilitating shifts from diagnosis and planning to action; and improving our ability to adjust to transformation as it occurs.

Curious about stemming the global biodiversity and climate crises? Browse this article on transformative conservation!

This paper expands the range of scenarios usually explored in integrated assessment models by exploring unconventional economic scenarios (steady-state and degrowth) and assuming no use of negative emissions. It is shown, using a mathematical model of climate and economy, that keeping cumulative emissions within the 1.5 degree carbon budget is possible under all growth assumptions, assuming a rapid electrification of end use and an immediate upscaling of renewable energy investments. Under business-as-usual investment assumptions no economic trajectory corresponds with emissions reductions consistent with the 1.5 degree carbon budget.

This paper presents a stock-flow consistent input–output integrated assessment model designed to explore the dual dynamics of transitioning to renewable energy while electrifying end use subject a carbon budget constraint. Unlike the majority of conventional integrated assessment model analyses, this paper does not assume the deployment of carbon dioxide removal and examines the role that alternative economic pathways (steady-states and degrowth) may play in achieving 1.5°C consistent emissions pathways. The model is internally calibrated based on a life-cycle energy return on investment scheme and the energy transition dynamics are captured via a dynamic input–output formulation. Renewable energy investment as a fraction of gross domestic product for successful emissions pathways reaches 5%. In terms of new capital requirements and investments, degrowth trajectories impose lower transition requirements than steady-state and growth trajectories.

We explore the role that steady-state and degrowth economic trajectories may play in emissions reductions consistent with a 1.5 degree world..

Models are increasingly used to inform the transformation of human–Earth systems towards a sustainable future, aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDGs). We argue that a greater diversity of models ought to be used for sustainability analysis to better address complexity and uncertainty. We articulate the steps to model global change socioeconomic and climatic scenarios with new models. Through these steps, we generate new scenario projections using a human–Earth system dynamics model. Our modelling brings new insights about the sensitivity of sustainability trends to future uncertainty and their alignment with or divergence from previous model-based scenario projections.

The future uncertainty and complexity of alternative socioeconomic and climatic scenarios challenge the model-based analysis of sustainable development. Obtaining robust insights requires a systematic processing of uncertainty and complexity not only in input assumptions, but also in the diversity of model structures that simulates the multisectoral dynamics of human and Earth system interactions. Here, we implement the global change scenarios, that is, the shared socioeconomic pathways and the representative concentration pathways, in a feedback-rich, integrated assessment model (IAM) of human–Earth system dynamics, called FeliX, to serve two aims: (1) to provide modellers with well-defined steps for the adoption of established scenarios in new IAMs and (2) to explore the impacts of model uncertainty and its structural complexity on the projection of these scenarios for sustainable development. Our modelling shows internally consistent scenario storylines across sectors, yet with quantitatively different realisations of these scenarios compared to other IAMs due to the new model's structural complexity. The results highlight the importance of enumerating global change scenarios and their uncertainty exploration with a diversity of models of different input assumptions and structures to capture a wider variety of future possibilities and sustainability indicators.

New study highlights the importance of global change scenario analysis with new, SDG-focused IAMs.

Implicit in the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Agenda is the notion that environmental sustainability is intertwined with, and underpins, the 17 Goals. Yet the language of the Goals, and their Targets and indicators is blind to the myriad ways in which nature supports people's health and wealth – which we argue represents a key impediment to progress. Using examples of nature–human wellbeing linkages, we assess the language of all 169 Targets to identify urgent research, policy, and action needed to spotlight and leverage nature's foundational role, to help enable truly sustainable development for all.

Nature's foundational role in helping achieve the SDGs is implicit rather than explicit in the language of SDGs Goals, Targets, and indicators. Drawing from the scientific literature describing how nature underpins human wellbeing, we carry out a systematic assessment of the language of all 169 Targets, categorizing which Targets are dependent upon nature for their achievement, could harm nature if attained through business-as-usual actions, or may synergistically benefit nature through their attainment. We find that half are dependent upon nature for their achievement – yet for more than two-thirds of those nature's role goes unstated and risks being downplayed or ignored. Moreover, while achieving the overwhelming majority of the 169 Targets could potentially benefit nature, more than 60% are likely to deliver ‘mixed outcomes’ – benefitting or harming nature depending on how they're achieved. Furthermore, of the 241 official indicators <5% track nature's role in achieving the parent Target. Our analysis provides insights important for increasing effectiveness across the SDG agenda regarding where to invest, how to enhance synergies and limit unanticipated impacts, and how to measure success. It also suggests a path for integrating the ‘nature that people need’ to achieve the SDGs into the CBD's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

Harmonizing links between the SDGs and the CBD's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework is vital for promoting sustainable development

Research on “corporate biosphere stewardship” and the related concept of “keystone actor” has proliferated in recent years. We scrutinize the program focusing on issues and assumptions associated with inequality, naturalizing social processes, or reification, and characterizing corporations as equivalent stakeholders in sustainable development with other actors and organizations. As a result, we argue the program does not promote the stated claim of transformative change for sustainability. We suggest that the research program should develop a deeper analysis of social dynamics, forces, and structures, based in social theory, particularly sociological work, which can help reveal common taken for granted assumptions.

We highlight important assumptions associated with the research program in sustainability science developed around “corporate biosphere stewardship” and the promise of “science-business initiatives.” In doing so, we interrogate a central concept in this research, “keystone actors.” We analyze the program based on associated research outputs and communications, focusing on three key challenges 1) inequities related to the concentration of political-economic power 2) concerns with naturalizing social processes, or reification, and 3) the limitations of characterizing corporations as commensurable stakeholders in sustainable development. This research program has revealed some important conditions and dynamics in relation to consolidation and concentration in global industries. However, it has been limited by insufficient integration of knowledge from social science, particularly sociology. Thus, the approach tends to undertheorize social dynamics, processes, and structures. Despite being framed as an effort at “improving the prospects for transformative change,” the implications, outcomes, and recommendations that emerge from this research program may inadvertently promote increased control and power of elite actors by presenting an ostensible inevitability of corporate dominance for bringing about social welfare and sustainability. We suggest greater attention to social structural dynamics, and particularly social struggles and social movements, when considering the potential for transformational change for sustainability.

More and more people around the globe experience climate hazards. For vulnerable populations, these hazards not only cause significant physical damages, but can also affect the way people interact with each other. How such interactions are affected by climate hazards is particularly important for understanding the vulnerability of communities. Prosocial behavior is key for communities that heavily rely on informal social support to deal with these threats and for cooperative solutions to provide and maintain public goods. To investigate these effects, we talk to people living on the front lines of climate change and measure their prosociality using behavioral tasks. Our results show that both fast- and slow-onset hazards increase prosociality, underscoring the importance of well-functioning social relationships for dealing with hardship and uncertainty in a variety of contexts.

People's willingness to engage in prosocial behavior can affect how vulnerable and resilient populations are to climate hazards. We study how different types of climate hazards, fast-onsetting cyclones and slowly rising sea-levels, might affect peoples' prosociality using incentivized behavioral tasks. We sample people who are at the forefront of climate change and either experienced Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (study 1; n = 378) or are from sea-level rise hotspots (study 2; n = 1047) in Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. We experimentally manipulate the salience of these hazards through recall or informational videos. Results from study 1 show that increases in prosociality are (i) independent of whether supportive behaviors or conflicts are recalled, (ii) are not only targeted to a narrow in-group, and (iii) do not come with increases in antisocial behaviors. In study 2, we also find that people behave more prosocial when they are informed about the impacts of rising sea-levels. Our survey evidence suggests that people who already perceive the threat of displacement due to rising sea-levels are also more prosocial. Overall, peoples' responses to both types of hazards are geared toward collective action, which could strengthen their adaptive capacity to deal with climate risks.

People severely affected by sea-level rise and rapidly emerging climate hazards are responding with increases in prosocial behaviors to fellow villagers.

A wide variety of social innovations exist today that offer urgently needed pathways for transforming societal systems into more just, sustainable and regenerative ways of organising human existence on this planet. However, a more systematic and practically useful understanding is needed of how individuals and organisations can strengthen the transformative capacity of people working on connecting, spreading, maturing and structurally embedding these innovations. This study presents an updated conceptual framework of network leadership roles and practices, and describes how these can contribute to more widespread, systemic and lasting impact of social innovations.

This study tests and refines a conceptual framework, describing the roles and practices of network leadership that can support the development of transformative capacities, in the context of social innovation networks. Such capacities include spreading social innovations in wider society, embedding them in policy and public discourse, and generating continuity and further development of social innovation activities. We studied five cases of transnational social innovation networks involving community-led and student-led sustainability initiatives. Practitioners in these networks were asked to rate and comment on the perceived recognisability and importance of network leadership roles and practices, as well as challenges, which we articulated in a previous study and further developed in the current study through participant observation and document analyses. This resulted in a revision of the roles and practices, the identification of relations between roles and a better understanding of how they can contribute to transformative capacity development. The interviews also helped to clarify the practical usefulness of the framework, suggesting possible applications for evaluating, prioritising and aligning roles performed by various individuals and organisations. The findings are relevant for better understanding and guiding distributed agency in transformative social innovation networks.

Roles and practices for network leadership to enable more widespread, systemic and lasting impact of social innovation.

Our analysis shows that the framing of social vulnerability is shaped by a narrow definition of resilience, focusing on post-disaster return and recovery responses. This perspective does not account for the dynamism and non-stationarity of social-ecological systems (SES) which is becoming increasingly important in the face of accelerating environmental change. Incorporating social-ecological resilience into social vulnerability analysis can improve coastal governance by accounting for adaptation and transformation, as well as scale and cross-scale interactions.

Social vulnerability analysis has been unable to deliver outcomes that reflect the reality of vulnerability and its consequences in an era characterised by accelerating environmental change. In this work, we used critical discourse analysis and key informant interviews to understand different framings of social vulnerability in coastal governance and management, globally and in New Zealand. We found that the framing of system vulnerability could vary depending on the definition of resilience adopted, which has critical ramifications for coastal governance of linked systems of humans and nature. We found that the framing of social vulnerability in coastal governance is mainly influenced by engineering, community and disaster resilience, focusing on return and recovery governance responses to environmental change (e.g. hurricanes, wildfires). Instead, we suggest a novel perspective based on social-ecological resilience, which more accurately reflects the dynamics of linked systems of humans and nature (SES). This revised perspective, general vulnerability, accounts for the dynamics of Earth's systems across various spatial and temporal scales in the face of accelerating environmental change. Accounting for social-ecological resilience and its core aspects (i.e. panarchy, adaptation and transformation) is essential for informing coastal governance of SES (Do we adapt? or Do we transform the SES?).

Social-ecological resilience is essential for social vulnerability analysis in the face of accelerating environmental change.

Mainstreaming climate objectives into sectoral work and policies is widely advocated as the way forward for sustainable public–private action. However, current knowledge on effective climate mainstreaming has rarely translated into policy outcomes and radical, transformational change. This ‘implementation gap’ relates to the limitations of current approaches, which do not adequately address so-called ‘internal’ or ‘personal’ spheres of transformation. Here, we address this gap and provide an integrative climate mainstreaming framework for improving and guiding future sustainability research, education, policy and practice.

Current knowledge on what makes climate mainstreaming effective has, so far, seldom translated into policy outcomes and radical, transformational change. This ‘implementation gap’ is related to the limitations of current approaches. The latter tend to focus on isolated, highly tangible, but essentially weak leverage points that do not adequately link practical and political solutions with ‘internal’ or ‘personal’ spheres of transformation. This link involves an internal (mindset/consciousness) shift leading to long-lasting changes in the way that we experience and relate to our self, others, the world and future generations. It requires unleashing people's internal potential and capacity to care, commit to, and effect change for a more sustainable life across individual, collective, organisational and system levels. To address this gap, we analyse how such internal dimensions can be integrated into climate mainstreaming, to move beyond its current, partial focus on external and technological solutions. Through a robust investigation of how to scale up climate mainstreaming in a more transformative manner, we explore how mainstreaming and conscious full-spectrum theories can be related to fundamentally advance the field and improve current approaches. The resulting integrative framework breaks new ground by linking the mainstreaming of climate considerations and internal dimensions across all spheres of transformation. We conclude with some policy recommendations and future research needs.

Linking climate policy integration/mainstreaming and personal development: an integrative framework.