Volume 7 Issue 5, May 2024

Scaling up adoption of green technologies in energy, mobility, construction, manufacturing and agriculture is imperative to set countries on a sustainable development path, but that hinges on having the right workforce, argues Jonatan Pinkse.

Apprehensions about job losses in incumbent industries can hold up sustainability transformations unless policymakers bolster efforts towards job reskilling programmes, argues Marko Hekkert.

Although research has consistently shown that managing natural resources more sustainably is both feasible and beneficial for jobs and livelihoods, the perception that the green transition leads to job losses prevails. We recommend strategies for wider and better communicating evidence, to decision-makers across the board, about what is needed to reap job benefits from a green transition.

To get the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back on track we need to reshape our approaches to implementation, including localization. Localization done differently involves progressing beyond symbolic piecemeal efforts, prioritizing the SDGs with the greatest gains, and pluralizing interpretations and pathways for actions.

Industrial firms will need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions dramatically for the world to reach its climate change mitigation goals. Now, analysis shows that the economic and employment impacts of these reductions can vary widely, depending on which firms are targeted.

Achieving a circular system for electronics hinges on greener design and effective recycling methods. Now, research presents a more durable printed circuit board that can also be sustainably and effectively recycled.

Polyamides are an important class of polymers, yet their fossil-based manufacturing markedly contributes to environmental pollution. A recent breakthrough unlocks a sustainable pathway to recyclable polyamides produced directly from biomass.

Global food supply chains drive ecosystem degradation and social injustices. This Perspective focuses on the ability of midstream actors operating between agricultural commodity producers and manufacturers of food products to improve supply chain sustainability.

Measuring the heath of urban greenery is costly but important. This Review presents the advantages and trade-offs of technology-supported tools to measure the health of urban greenery and highlights the importance of high-resolution urban greenery data to support cities in achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

Ecosystem services provided by coral reefs to coastal communities can depend on upstream land-use change activities such as forest restoration. This study assessed the social and ecological benefits provided by different watershed interventions designed at regional and national scales in Mesoamerica.

Assessing the resilience of groundwater resources can be challenging in data-sparse regions. Tritium observations and machine learning can be employed to fill gaps where traditional monitoring is insufficient and provide insight into aquifer vulnerability to pollution.

Cement is a ubiquitous material in modern construction, but produces substantial carbon emissions. Emerging technologies exist that can reduce cement’s carbon footprint, but the right strategies must be implemented ambitiously and synergistically to be effective.

Carbon neutrality complicates the transition to sustainability due to potential adverse effects on employment and the prosperity of high-emitting sectors. This study simulated the Hungarian economy and tested various strategies for reducing CO₂ emissions, revealing that decarbonization-induced economic and job losses can be substantially limited by considering the firm-level network of supply chains.

Evaluating the sustainability impacts of housing policies for low- and moderate-income households is challenging. This study links observations of housing programme participation and utility consumption to quantify the benefits of locally administered housing policies in a typical community in the American Southeast.

This work shows a diagnosis technique that works for multiple cancers and features cost advantage, environmental compliance and user-friendly protocol.

Recycling of printed circuit boards (PCBs) is currently restricted by the intrinsic materials design of conventional PCBs. This work presents a vitrimer-based PCB that shows great end-of-life recyclability.

This work shows an integrated device that could harvest osmosis energy at one side and then drive efficient production of green hydrogen from seawater at the other side.

With a sustainable carbohydrate core, the proposed polyamide plastic design here can compete with fossil-based alternative in terms of both performance and cost.

Hydroxylamine plays a critical role in the chemical industry, but its production currently has unfavourable environmental footprint. Now a plasma-electrochemical cascade pathway powered by electricity enables efficient hydroxylamine synthesis from ambient air and water at mild conditions.

Safety is only one side of the coin for aqueous batteries. Here the authors show a water-in-polymer electrolyte that shows a wide electrochemical window and salt recyclability, thus addressing challenges at the other side.

Critical clean energy materials exhibit supply risks due to unbalanced cross-country production and consumption patterns. A study now maps the global distribution of mineral property rights, through foreign direct investment, to show its potential role in reducing critical materials’ supply risks.