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Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses

Nature Sustainability volume 7, pages 108–119 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Operating within safe and just Earth system boundaries requires mobilizing key actors across scale to set targets and take actions accordingly. Robust, transparent and fair cross-scale translation methods are essential to help navigate through the multiple steps of scientific and normative judgements in translation, with clear awareness of associated assumptions, bias and uncertainties. Here, through literature review and expert elicitation, we identify commonly used sharing approaches, illustrate ten principles of translation and present a protocol involving key building blocks and control steps in translation. We pay particular attention to businesses and cities, two understudied but critical actors to bring on board.

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Fig. 1: The scope, scale and sharing approaches in cross-scale translation.
Fig. 2: A typology of cross-scale translation as revealed from combinations of sharing approaches applied at a single scale or across multiple scales.
Fig. 3: Ten principles of translation.
Fig. 4: Key building blocks in connecting ESBs to actors and the applicable ten principles of translation.
Fig. 5: Towards a protocol for cross-scale translation of ESBs.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the Earth Commission, which is hosted by Future Earth and is the science component of the Global Commons Alliance. The Global Commons Alliance is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, with support from Oak Foundation, MAVA, Porticus, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Global Environment Facility and Generation Foundation. The Earth Commission is also supported by the Global Challenges Foundation and Frontiers Research Foundation. Individual researchers were supported by the Australian Government (Australian Research Council Future Fellowship FT200100381 to S.J.L.) and the Swedish Research Council Formas (grant 2020-00371 to S.J.L.). We thank S. Bringezu for his valuable inputs and V. Vijay for her comments on an earlier version of this paper. The authors take full responsibility for the contents and any remaining errors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Xuemei Bai & Steven J. Lade

  2. Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Syezlin Hasan & Ben Stewart-Koster

  3. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Lauren Seaby Andersen & Johan Rockström

  4. Centre for Absolute Sustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Anders Bjørn

  5. Section for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Anders Bjørn

  6. The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Ankara, Turkey

    Şiir Kilkiş

  7. Future Earth Secretariat, Stockholm, Sweden

    Daniel Ospina, Wendy Broadgate, Steven J. Lade & Juan Rocha

  8. Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Jianguo Liu

  9. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sarah E. Cornell, Beatrice Crona, Steven J. Lade & Juan Rocha

  10. Science Based Targets Network, New York, NY, USA

    Oscar Sabag Muñoz

  11. Global Land Programme, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Ariane de Bremond

  12. Centre for Environment and Development, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Ariane de Bremond

  13. Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

    Beatrice Crona

  14. EAT, Oslo, Norway

    Fabrice DeClerck

  15. Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT of the CGIAR, Montpellier, France

    Fabrice DeClerck

  16. IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands

    Joyeeta Gupta

  17. Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Joyeeta Gupta

  18. Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Holger Hoff

  19. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Nebojsa Nakicenovic & Caroline Zimm

  20. CORDIO East Africa, Mombasa, Kenya

    David Obura

  21. University of Exeter Business School, Exeter, UK

    Gail Whiteman

  22. Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Johan Rockström

  23. Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Detlef van Vuuren

  24. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, the Netherlands

    Detlef van Vuuren

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  1. Xuemei Bai
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Contributions

X.B., S.H., L.S.A., A.B., S.K., D. Ospina., J.L., S.E.C., O.S.M., A.d.B., B.C., F.D., J.G., H.H., N.N., D. Obura., G.W., W.B., S.J.L., J. Rockström., B.S.-K., D.v.V. and C.Z. contributed to the conceptualization and deliberation of the work. X.B. led the work and the writing process. S.H. led the literature review of sharing approaches. X.B., S.H., L.S.A., D. Ospina., A.B., S.K., J.L. and O.S.M. drafted the manuscript. S.H., X.B. and L.S.A. produced and finalized the figures. X.B., S.H., L.S.A., A.B., S.K., D. Ospina., J.L., S.E.C., O.S.M., A.d.B., B.C., F.D., J.G., H.H., N.N., D. Obura., G.W., W.B., S.J.L., J. Rocha, J. Rockström., B.S.-K., D.v.V. and C.Z. provided critical reviews, extensive comments and editing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xuemei Bai.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Cameron Allen, Daniel Hoornweg and Zhu Liu for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

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Supplementary information on method.

Supplementary Table 1

Inventory of literature on translation studies.

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Bai, X., Hasan, S., Andersen, L.S. et al. Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses. Nat Sustain 7, 108–119 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01255-w

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