Reviews & Analysis

Biofuels became controversial for compromising food production. Forest residue conversion to jet fuel is a second-generation biofuel that doesn’t compete with food. However, it has unexpected implications across the Sustainable Development Goals.

Analyses of protein in our future food supply have focused on the need to reduce animal-based foods and increase plant-based foods. A new analysis describes a parallel possibility — producing and consuming less-considered options, including insect larva, algae and cultured meat.

Issues around the use of natural resources are often framed in terms of the nexus concept. This Perspective discusses why the nexus concept matters in understanding the link between bio-physical and human dimensions, particularly with regard to the SDGs.

The wastewater treatment industry contributes approximately 1.6% of greenhouse gas emissions. This Review analyses alternative wastewater treatment pathways for simultaneous CO₂ capture and utilization and shows the multiple benefits of microbial electrochemical and phototrophic processes.

Organizations are social systems different from ecosystems and natural resources. Using social systems theory, and employing the concepts of emergence, resilience and scale, this Perspective presents management principles for pursuing sustainability across an array of organizational contexts.

Reservoirs are frequently posited as a method of increasing water supplies, especially in arid areas. However, they may be inducing and enabling demands for water through increased population and economic activity, and these demands can surpass even the supply that the reservoir can provide and counterintuitively make the areas more vulnerable to drought conditions.

Behind pressing scientific questions of sustainability, unexplored areas of theoretical and mathematical knowledge await discovery. A fresh take on the notion of resilience provides a glimpse of what to expect.

Current understanding is that electricity savings in green commercial buildings are low or even negligible. New research, based on a sophisticated analysis of detailed energy data, proves that they do save energy, decrease environmental damage and reduce peak electricity demand.

Resistance to antimicrobials and pesticides — collectively, biocides — undermines human health and food production. This Review assesses options for governing and promoting susceptibility to biocides to remain within the planet’s safe operating space.

The interaction between land degradation and the livelihoods of the poor is complex and conditioned by important economic, social and environmental factors. These factors are also in part responsible for the limited success of economic growth policies to reduce poverty.

Are we making the best use of data in our efforts to protect the natural environment? A new study suggests that we could be doing much better.

A reliable power supply in developing countries can help socio-economic development efforts. Now research shows that it would also avoid significant environmental impacts.

Livestock production can pose challenges for populations of large wild mammals. Conservation failure isn’t a foregone conclusion, however, if integrated management for ranching and for wildlife benefits both.

Nitrogen pollution is an intensifying, globally important problem driven by industrial agriculture. The authors propose applying the Corporate Average Fuel Economy logic to promote adoption of enhanced-efficiency fertilizers by farmers.

In this Review, the authors discuss challenges and opportunities for the use of social-media data in sustainability research and practice at the city level, and identify useful directions for future research.

Geoengineering is unproven and risky. Social science scholars explain why some are still investing in and pursuing geoengineering to address climate change, and the consequences this has for alternatives.

Sustainability challenges, such as feeding people with fewer resources, involve challenges at the nexus of multiple issues, such as food, water and energy. This Review explores such nexus approaches, surveying their use towards sustainable development challenges, discussing examples, and proposing a systematic procedure and future directions.

The sustainability discourse is at risk of remaining too shallow to achieve necessary change. This Perspective argues not just for a commitment to transdisciplinarity but also a deeper understanding of the capabilities and failings of science in understanding the relationship between the human and natural worlds.

A grand plan to devote half the planet to nature could create conflicts with farming. A global analysis locates the countries and ecoregions where scaling up habitat protection will be most difficult.