Journal: One Earth

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Publisher

Elsevier

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ISSN

2590-3322

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2020 - 202513
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Publications 1 - 10 of 13
  • Quantitative assessment of agricultural sustainability reveals divergent priorities among nations
    Item type: Journal Article
    Zhang, Xin; Yao, Guolin; Vishwakarma, Srishti; et al. (2021)
    One Earth
    Agriculture is fundamental to all three pillars of sustainability, environment, society, and economy. However, the definition of sustainable agriculture and the capacities to measure it remain elusive. Independent and transparent measurements of national sustainability are needed to gauge progress, encourage accountability, and inform policy. Here, we developed a Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM) to quantify national performance indicators in agriculture and to investigate the trade-offs and synergies based on historical data for most countries of the world. The results reveal priority areas for improvement by each country and show that the trade-offs and synergies among indicators often differ. Exceptions to common economic-versus-environmental trade-offs, for example, offer opportunities to learn from countries with synergistic pathways for multiple sustainability indicators. These SAM indicators will improve as data become more available, but this version offers a useful starting point for evaluating progress, identifying priorities for improvement, and informing national policies and actions toward sustainable agriculture.
  • Legally binding reduction targets for primary plastics production: A necessity to end plastic pollution
    Item type: Other Journal Item
    Olsen, Tara; Tangri, Neil; Carney Almroth, Bethanie; et al. (2025)
    One Earth
    Reducing primary plastics production (PPP) is crucial to mitigating environmental and health impacts. Setting effective reduction targets requires further research to avoid underestimating socio-economic and ecological costs. Scientifically informed and adaptable targets ensure accurate assessment and long-term sustainability.
  • Assessing nature-based solutions for transformative change
    Item type: Journal Article
    Palomo, Ignacio; Locatelli, Bruno; Otero, Iago; et al. (2021)
    One Earth
    Nature-based solutions (NbS) have gained considerable traction in science and policy, but their potential to deliver transformative change remains unexplored. We provide a framework to assess NbS under a transformative change lens and operationalize it through 93 NbS from mountain regions globally. We found evidence of NbS’ potential for transformative change toward sustainable trajectories, mostly through a combination of various nature’s values and knowledge types, community engagement processes, and ecosystem management practices.
  • The politics of enabling tipping points for sustainable development
    Item type: Journal Article
    Fesenfeld, Lukas Paul; Schmid, Nicolas; Finger, Robert; et al. (2022)
    One Earth
    Achieving most sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the Paris climate targets depends on the fast transformation of complex socio-technical systems. Recent research has highlighted the importance of crossing positive tipping points to accelerate the transformation of complex energy, food, and transport systems. Yet, there is a lack of research on the politics of enabling such tipping points. Here, we argue that policy strategies enabling the creation and crossing of such points are needed. Such strategies should harness political feedbacks from both technological and behavioral changes over time. To inform such strategies, we need a better empirical understanding of how these feedbacks unfold, eventually resulting in tipping points. We propose a novel framework to structure such feedback research by linking it to three core sustainability principles, namely efficiency, sufficiency, and substitution. Our framework advances ongoing debates about the politics of enabling tipping points for sustainable development.
  • Net-zero emissions chemical industry in a world of limited resources
    Item type: Review Article
    Gabrielli, Paolo; Rosa, Lorenzo; Gazzani, Matteo; et al. (2023)
    One Earth
    The chemical industry is responsible for about 5% of global CO2 emissions and is key to achieving net-zero targets. Decarbonizing this industry, nevertheless, faces particular challenges given the widespread use of carbon-rich raw materials, the need for high-temperature heat, and the complex global value chains. Multiple technology routes are now available for producing chemicals with net-zero CO2 emissions based on biomass, recycling, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. However, the extent to which these routes are viable with respect to local availability of energy and natural resources remains unclear. In this review, we compare net-zero routes by quantifying their energy, land, and water requirements and the corresponding induced resource scarcity at the country level and further discuss the technical and environmental viability of a net-zero chemical industry. We find that a net-zero chemical industry will require location-specific integrated solutions that combine net-zero routes with circular approaches and demand-side measures and might result in a reshaping of the global chemicals trade.
  • Bio-Based Renovation in Europe: Investor and Homeowner Prospects
    Item type: Other Journal Item
    Göswein, Verena; Rodionova, Alina; Habert, Guillaume (2023)
    One Earth
    This commentary underscores the significance of bio-based building materials in addressing pressing challenges in Europe’s building sector, offering climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions. It highlights their potential for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, providing valuable insights for stakeholders aiming to promote bio-based renovation.
  • Whose perspective counts? A critical look at definitions of terras used for natural and near-natural forests
    Item type: Review Article
    Savilaakso, Sini; Lausberg, Nik; Waeber, Patrick O.; et al. (2023)
    One Earth
    The way forests are defined, using terms such as ancient, old-growth, primary, sacred, or intact forest landscapes, has far-reaching impacts on how, why, and where forests are conserved and managed. Definitions of terms such as "old-growth forests"have been discussed individually but not collectively assessed. Here, we review the definitions and uses of terms associated with natural and near-natural forests using systematic mapping methods and critical analysis. Our findings reveal a variety of definitions for different terms, although a few frequently cited ones prevail. Our results also highlight the dominance of Western institutions and scientific knowledge in shaping global discourses on forest conservation, often at the expense of Indigenous and local perspectives. Despite the increasing recognition of the value-based benefits that forests provide, definitions that explicitly incorporate values are scarce. This omission of the voices of forest-proximate communities and a lack of consideration for their local values and needs result in recognition, contextual, and procedural inequities when employing mainstream terms to define natural and near-natural forests.
  • Habitat fragmentation amplifies threats from habitat loss to mammal diversity across the world’s terrestrial ecoregions
    Item type: Journal Article
    Kuipers, Koen J.J.; Hilbers, Jelle P.; Garcia-Ulloa, John; et al. (2021)
    One Earth
    Global biodiversity is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic environmental change. While there is mounting evidence that habitat loss is a key threat to biodiversity, global assessments typically ignore additional threats from habitat fragmentation. Here, we present a species-area model that integrates habitat size and connectivity, considering species habitat preference and dispersal capacity, patch size, inter-patch distances, and landscape matrix permeability. We applied the model to predict threats from habitat loss and fragmentation to non-volant mammal diversity across the world's ecoregions. We predict that, on average, 10 mammal species are committed to extinction due to habitat loss and fragmentation (range 0-86). On average, 9% of loss is due to fragmentation (range 0%-90%). Considering both habitat loss and fragmentation, our model can be used for large-scale explorative assessments to inform and evaluate strategies for minimizing biodiversity loss and for optimizing habitat conservation and restoration.
  • Global variation in contributions to human well-being from urban vegetation ecosystem services
    Item type: Journal Article
    Richards, Daniel R.; Belcher, Richard N.; Carrasco, L. Roman; et al. (2022)
    One Earth
    Urbanization has caused multiple environmental grand challenges that impair urban sustainability. Urban vegetation (UV), a mainstream nature-based solution (NBS), can mitigate urban challenges through providing important ecosystem services (ESs). However, successful implementation of UV to provide ESs, is impaired due to insufficient knowledge of its effectiveness under different climatic and socio-economic conditions. Here, we quantify seven ESs provided by UV across 2,148 cities with ≥250,000 residents. We show that UV makes substantial contributions to outdoor recreation and stormwater regulation but is less effective in reducing air pollution, in most cities, regardless of the climatic and socio-economic context. The contributions of UV to carbon sequestration, coastal protection, shade provision, and land surface temperature reduction were generally smaller and varied substantially dependent on city climatic and human development index characteristics. Comprehensive assessments for urban NBS planning are essential to maximize ES efficacy for urban sustainability improvements and support human well-being.
  • Utilizing multi-objective decision support tools for protected area selection
    Item type: Review Article
    Voskamp, Alke; Fritz, Susanne A.; Köcke, Valerie; et al. (2023)
    One Earth
    Establishing and maintaining protected areas (PAs) is a key action in delivering post-2020 biodiversity targets. PAs often need to meet multiple objectives, ranging from biodiversity protection to ecosystem service provision and climate change mitigation, but available land and conservation funding is limited. Therefore, optimizing resources by selecting the most beneficial PAs is vital. Here, we advocate for a flexible and transparent approach to selecting PAs based on multiple objectives, and illustrate this with a decision support tool on a global scale. The tool allows weighting and prioritization of different conservation objectives according to user-specified preferences as well as real-time comparison of the outcome. Applying the tool across 1,346 terrestrial PAs, we demonstrate that decision makers frequently face trade-offs among conflicting objectives, e.g., between species protection and ecosystem integrity. Nevertheless, we show that transparent decision support tools can reveal synergies and trade-offs associated with PA selection, thereby helping to illuminate and resolve land-use conflicts embedded in divergent societal and political demands and values.
Publications 1 - 10 of 13