Downing, A., Wong, G.Y., Dyer, M., Aguiar, A. P., Selomane, O., Jimenez Aceituno, A. 2021. When the whole is less than the sum of all parts – Tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives. Global Environmental Change Volume 69, July 2021, 102306, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102306

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and assumes that global-level ...

Queiroz, C., Norström, A., Downing, A., Harmáčková, Z., De Coning, C., Adams, V., Bakarr, M., Baedeker, T., Chitate, A., Gaffney, O., Gordon, L., Hainzelin, É., Howlett, D., Krampe, F., Loboguerrero, A., Nel, D., Okollet, C., Rebermark, M., Rockström, J., Smith, M., Wabbes-Candotti, S., Matthews, N.. 2021. Investment in resilient food systems in the most vulnerable and fragile regions is critical. Nature Food. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00345-2

Reversing the alarming trend of rising food insecurity requires transformations towards just, sustainable and healthy food systems with an explicit focus on the most vulnerable and fragile regions. Global food insecurity fell for decades, but it is steadily rising again 1 . A primary driver of this alarming trend is the double burden of climate shocks and violent conflict in areas that are already food insecure. The recent ...

Downing, A., S., Chang, M., Kuiper, J.,J., Campenni, M., Häyhä, T., Cornell, S., Svedin, U., Mooji, W. 2020. Learning from generations of sustainability concepts. Environmental Research Letters, Accepted Manuscript

Background: For decades, scientists have attempted to provide a sustainable development framework that integrates goals of environmental protection and human development. The Planetary Boundaries concept (PBc) – a framework to guide sustainable development – juxtaposes a 'safe operating space for humanity' and 'planetary boundaries', to achieve a goal that decades of research have yet to meet. We here investigate if PBc is suf...

Jiménez-Aceituno, A., Peterson, G.D., Norström, A.V., Wong, G.Y., Downing, A.S. 2019. Local lens for SDG implementation: lessons from bottom-up approaches in Africa. Sustainability Science

The Anthropocene presents a set of interlinked sustainability challenges for humanity. The United Nations 2030 Agenda has identified 17 specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a way to confront these challenges. However, local initiatives have long been addressing issues connected to these goals in a myriad of diverse and innovative ways. We present a new approach to assess how local initiatives contribute to achievi...