Volume 4 Issue 4, April 2021

Staging the Olympics now requires attention to sustainability and urban legacy. Resolving their competing demands rests on recognizing the realities of the host city–IOC relationship.

Many scientists argue that large-scale value changes are needed for a sustainability transformation. New research shows that such changes might be happening.

The International Olympic Committee has long trumpeted its own sustainability credibility. But are the Olympic Games actually sustainable or are they greenwashing gold?

Wind and solar power plants emit no air pollution while operating, but how effectively do they lower overall emissions from the electric grid? New research traces wind and solar impacts through the grid, even across regional boundaries.

Reaching the Sustainable Development Goals requires recognizing trade-offs and synergies among targets. Focusing on conservation and human health, this Perspective suggests how to productively distinguish win–wins from other outcomes.

Climate-oriented goals in air quality and clean energy policies can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly if shifting to biomass cooking and addressing emissions from brick production and agricultural residue burning.

Agricultural expansion to grow food, fibre and biofuel will further threaten biodiversity. This study finds that almost 90% of terrestrial vertebrate species will lose habitat to such expansion, but proactive food policies could reduce these threats.

A large survey in 19 US states covering just over a decade shows that values regarding wildlife are shifting toward seeing it as one’s community, as opposed to a resource to use for human benefit.

The Indus river basin in South Asia is water stressed, energy insecure and intensively farmed, and research on this region often lacks a systemic approach to the issues. This study shows how the path to development in the region could be made less costly and more environmentally friendly by fostering transboundary cooperation.

Sustainability has been added as a ‘pillar’ of the Olympic movement, but this analysis examines each Summer and Winter Games since 1992 to find that the performance of host cities across a range of indicators has been declining over time.

An analysis of 177 studies and expert opinions about instruments for ocean protection shows that a combination of tools is needed to achieve all of the ocean SDG targets.

An analysis of spatially explicit historical data shows notable regional differences in the benefits in reduced emissions from integrating renewable energy across the United States.

Banning the sale of rinse-off cosmetics containing plastic microbeads to protect the environment requires understanding the lifetime environmental impacts of potential substitutes. By comparing the environmental performance of alternatives, this study finds viable substitutes and those with adverse effects.