Perspectives

Additive manufacturing is gaining growing attention as an alternative to conventional methods, but it can support more-sustainable manufacturing processes if developed through a system-level approach. This Perspective discusses how to achieve such a holistic development of additive manufacturing systems for sustainability.

Designing and implementing effective carbon offset mechanisms is a complex and challenging process. This Perspective underscores the importance of transparency across the carbon-offsetting value chain and places it as a prerequisite for efficient offset mechanisms and, ultimately, carbon emissions reduction.

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.

Research on how to support human exploration and eventual habitation of outer space is advancing. However, while its aims are beyond our planet, space bioprocess engineering has practical sustainability applications here on Earth.

International policy is concerned about palm oil-induced deforestation, whereas Indonesia’s government and industry representatives emphasize the role that palm oil plays in support of the livelihoods of millions of smallholder local farmers. This Perspective discusses how smallholders can still be supported without incurring further forest loss.

Risks in globally interconnected socio-environmental systems are complex and efforts to study them are incomplete. This Perspective argues that risks should be considered as both a product of these systems and a force that rewires them through a variety of mechanisms.

Adopting technological solutions for water management without considering the complexity underlying human–water interactions can result in unintended consequences. Now a systems meta-model offers a tool to reveal critical human–water links and guide coordinated solutions for sustainable water management.

Heatwaves are more frequent and lead to considerable suffering, especially among the poorest and most disadvantaged people. This Perspective discusses the concept of systemic cooling poverty with the aim of informing policy and practice to support vulnerable groups.

Rangelands provide critical ecosystem and societal services and are central to livestock husbandry across the United States. How these considerations are balanced, and possibly expanded on, will shape the future of rangeland ecosystems and communities moving into the future.

World Heritage Sites are under threat of severe impacts due to climate change. This Perspective discusses three facets of management—integrating pluralistic values, adopting holistic methods and ensuring Indigenous leadership—that can assist the conservation of sites.

This Perspective argues that slums, particularly in the Global South, are often left out of circular economy research for a variety of reasons, but that such places already provide meaningful examples of circular practices in everyday life.

The concept of resilience, once meaning the ability to ‘bounce back’ to the status quo, now refers to the capacity to live and develop with change. A mismatch between the latest science of resilience and the talk of resilience recovery after COVID-19 requires resilience thinking to be aligned with sustainable development.

Human and natural systems are inextricably intertwined, co-evolving systems. The study presents a new conservation framework incorporating the different roles people can play in ecosystem health, through land stewardship.

Biophysical boundaries are not inherently just. A collaboration between social and natural scientists, the Earth Commission, defines and operationalizes Earth system justice to ensure that biophysical boundaries reduce harm, increase well-being, and reflect substantive and procedural justice.

A varied repertoire of responses helps manage fluctuations, as in markets. This Perspective argues that society needs to strengthen the diversity of options for responding to disruptions, exploring how this response diversity is expressed, how it can be built and lost, and what we can do to promote it.

Owing to the underlying chemical nature of many environmental injustices, green chemistry can play a role in advancing environmental justice towards a more equitable future.

Philosophers in the Western tradition of virtue ethics have long considered practical wisdom a central virtue. This Perspective suggests that virtue ethics and practical wisdom can enrich the work of sustainability researchers, helping them to navigate the challenges of co-producing knowledge and effecting transformative change.

The hazardous life cycle of synthetic materials is driving sustainable materials with biogenic building blocks to play a larger role. This Perspective identifies the main challenges and suggests the way forward by focusing on food packaging.

Moving from a glacial-hydrological focus to a social-ecological perspective of the wider catchment hydrology can improve the assessment of mountain water security. Such a shift can help in the development of context-specific and transformational adaptation strategies to changes in the mountain cryosphere.

Minerals are essential to human development, from toothpaste to building materials, but are often seen as an impediment to sustainable development. This narrative must change to ensure sustainable and equitable access to minerals for the globe.