Publications

Bjoern Soergel, Sebastian Rauner, Vassilis Daioglou, Isabelle Weindl, Alessio Mastrucci, Fabio Carrer, Jarmo S. Kikstra, Geanderson Ambrósio, Ana Paula D Aguiar, Lavinia Baumstark, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Astrid Bos, Jan Philipp Dietrich, Alois Dirnaichner, Jonathan Doelman, Robin Hasse, Ariel Macaspac Hernandez, Johanna Hoppe, Florian Humpenöder, Gabriela Ileana Iacobuţă, Dorothee Keppler, Johannes Koch, Gunnar Luderer, Hermann Lotze-Campen, Michaja Pehl, Miguel Poblete Cazenave, Alexander Popp, Merle Remy, Willem-Jan van Zeist, Sarah Cornell, Ines Dombrowsky, Edgar Hertwich, Falk Schmidt, Bas van Ruijven, Detlef van Vuuren, Elmar Kriegler. 2024. Multiple pathways towards sustainable development goals and climate targets. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad80af

The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the Paris climate target require a holistic transformation towards human well-being within planetary boundaries. However, there are growing debates on how to best pursue these targets. Proposed transformation strategies include market- and technology-driven green-growth, shifting towards a sufficiency-oriented post-growth economy, and a transformation driven primarily by strong g...

Bai, X., Hasan, S., Andersen, L.S., Bjørn, A., Kilkiş, Ş., Ospina, D., Liu, J., Cornell, S.E., Sabag Muñoz, O., de Bremond, A., Crona, B., DeClerck, F., Gupta, J., Hoff, H., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Whiteman, G., Broadgate, W., Lade, S.J., Rocha, J., Rockström, J., Stewart-Koster, B., van Vuuren, D., Zimm, C.. 2024. Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01255-w

Operating within safe and just Earth system boundaries requires mobilizing key actors across scale to set targets and take actions accordingly. Robust, transparent and fair cross-scale translation methods are essential to help navigate through the multiple steps of scientific and normative judgements in translation, with clear awareness of associated assumptions, bias and uncertainties. Here, through literature review and expe...

Celinda Palm, Celinda Palm, Sarah E. Cornell, Sarah E. Cornell. 2024. Planetary Priorities Rubik's Cube Icon print-sheet. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12517686

This print-sheet consists of six icon images representing six planetary priorities for sustainable business action, and a short explainer of how to use them. The planetary priorities are the human-driven environmental processes in the planetary boundaries framework that are already beyond the 'safe operating space', where present-day trends are worsening, and where business can already act directly using existing impact asses...

Sarah E. Cornell, Sarah E. Cornell, Celinda Palm, Celinda Palm. 2024. How can a Rubik's Cube help you understand the global environmental sustainability challenge? Stockholm Resilience Centre. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12592469

Tobian, A., Gerten, D., Fetzer, I., Schaphoff, S., Andersen, L.S., Cornell, S., Rockström, J.. 2024. Climate change critically affects the status of the land-system change planetary boundary. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad40c2

The planetary boundaries framework defines a safe operating space for humanity. To date, these boundaries have mostly been investigated separately, and it is unclear whether breaching one boundary can lead to the transgression of another. By employing a dynamic global vegetation model, we systematically simulate the strength and direction of the effects of different transgression levels of the climate change boundary (using cl...

Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen, Wolfgang Lucht, Jørgen Bendtsen, Sarah E. Cornell, Jonathan F. Donges, Markus Drüke, Ingo Fetzer, Govindasamy Bala, Werner von Bloh, Georg Feulner, Stephanie Fiedler, Dieter Gerten, Tom Gleeson, Matthias Hofmann, Willem Huiskamp, Matti Kummu, Chinchu Mohan, David Nogués-Bravo, Stefan Petri, Miina Porkka, Stefan Rahmstorf, Sibyll Schaphoff, Kirsten Thonicke, Arne Tobian, Vili Virkki, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Lisa Weber, Johan Rockström. 2023. Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity. Ocean acidification is close to being breached, while aerosol loading regionally exceeds the boundary. Stratospheric ozone levels have slightly recovered. The transgression level has increased for all boundaries earlier identified as overstepped. ...

Sasha Quahe, Sarah E. Cornell, Simon West. 2023. Framing science-based targets: Reformist and radical discourses in an Earth system governance initiative. Earth System Governance. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2023.100196

Science-Based Targets (SBTs) are being developed for companies to contribute to global sustainability goals, including for ‘nature’. The literature has not yet explored multiple understandings of SBTs. We adopt an interpretive approach, using Q methodology to explore framings of SBTs amongst 22 scientists and practitioners engaged in SBT development. Results show two distinct framings: ‘we need science-based targets to help ec...

Green, C., Bilyanska, A., Bradley, M., Dinsdale, J., Hutt, L., Backhaus, T., Boons, F., Bott, D., Collins, C., Cornell, S.E., Craig, M., Depledge, M., Diderich, B., Fuller, R., Galloway, T.S., Hutchison, G.R., Ingrey, N., Johnson, A.C., Kupka, R., Matthiessen, P., Oliver, R., Owen, S., Owens, S., Pickett, J., Robinson, S., Sims, K., Smith, P., Sumpter, J.P., Tretsiakova-McNally, S., Wang, M., Welton, T., Willis, K.J., Lynch, I.. 2023. A Horizon Scan to Support Chemical Pollution–Related Policymaking for Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Economies. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5620

While chemicals are vital to modern society through materials, agriculture, textiles, new technology, medicines, and consumer goods, their use is not without risks. Unfortunately, our resources seem inadequate to address the breadth of chemical challenges to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important we use our intelligence and knowledge wisely to prepare for what lies ahead. The present study used a Delphi-s...

Stephen A. Matlin, Goverdhan Mehta, Sarah E. Cornell, Alain Krief, Henning Hopf. 2023. Chemistry and pathways to net zero for sustainability. RSC Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SU00125C

Chemistry needs to play a central role in achieving ‘net zero’ emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere to prevent changes to the climate that will have catastrophic impacts for humanity and for many ecosystems on the planet. International action to limit global warming to 1.5 °C has framed as a key goal the reduction of global emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2050, with any remaining emissions re-a...

Cornell, S.E. 2022. We need to talk about gender in the 'safe operating space for humanity. Innovating Business for Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839101328.00009

The planetary boundaries framework highlights critical global environmental processes where society’s activities are altering Earth system risks. As businesses increasingly seek to apply the framework, more attention should be given to gender in the knowledge-action interplay of its scientific methodology, the discursive production of the framework’s ‘safe operating space for humanity’, and its institutional operationalization...