Volume 5 Issue 2, February 2022

A mission-oriented approach to transform capitalism is the only way to make progress towards sustainable development, argues Mariana Mazzucato.

Orchestrating a global transition to a sustainable world economy seems both urgent and surpassingly daunting. J.R. McNeill asks whether there is a workaround.

Social capital, embedded in people’s relationships, is important for practically all domains of life. Individuals need others to safeguard and enhance their living conditions. A study now shows that social capital helps in the recovery from a natural disaster.

Research on energy and climate change mitigation is disconnected from the advancement of well-being. This Perspective proposes to relate energy use to individual well-being through consumption by bridging across social sciences, energy–economic models and climate policy analysis.

Ecosystems worldwide are increasingly threatened. Using an approach applicable to coral reefs globally, including data-poor regions, this study finds coral reef ecosystems in the Western Indian Ocean at risk of collapse.

Agricultural trade challenges resource management domestically and globally. This study finds that up to 26% of global phosphorus fertilizer use is tied to export crops and livestock commodities, suggesting trade partners will need to coordinate to buffer domestic food supplies from phosphorus shortages.

Tropical forests are threatened worldwide. This study finds Indigenous Lands reduce deforestation and degradation throughout the tropics at rates comparable to protected areas and at higher rates in Africa.

Existing methods to help decision-makers capture the interactions across Sustainable Development Goals do not incorporate the experience of the intended users. Using the case of Sweden, this study shows that most methods largely align with what decision-makers require for their application but show low performance on some critical features.

Despite concerns about plastics in the environment, not enough attention is paid to the impacts of the various stages of the plastics value chain globally. This study finds that most environmental and socioeconomic impacts from plastics are due to their growing production in coal-based economies.

In-person conferences have typically resulted in a large carbon footprint while limiting inclusivity of those who can attend. This analysis uses the pandemic to gauge like-for-like environmental and demographic outcomes for virtual conference attendance.

Despite the wide acceptance of the role of the material footprint indicator in sustainability, no reporting facility at present provides sufficient information on countries’ material footprints. This study presents a new research platform that regularly provides detailed global material footprint accounts.

Analysis of data from a two-wave survey of households in Nepal before and after the 2015 earthquakes shows that higher human capital helped them recover faster than did social capital and that the two forms of capital are partially substitutable.