The planetary boundaries framework highlights the rising security risks from human pressure on nine critical global processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth.
Human activities have pushed Earth beyond its Safe Operating Space. The planet's natural resilience is weakening: Global warming is accelerating, ecosystems are showing clear signs of degradation, and early warning signs of tipping points are emerging in key systems. We have entered the Anthropocene — an era where human activity dominates the Earth system.
To safeguard the Earth's resilience and stability, we must bring the planet back into its Planetary Boundaries. Planetary boundaries are quantitative assessments of the safe limits for human pressure on these nine critical processes.
They are scientifically defined guardrails that ensure the Earth's health. Stay within them, and the Earth stays our dependable home — breach them, and we risk irreversible damage to our very own life support system. Today, seven out of nine boundaries have been transgressed.
Combining insights from many fields of global environmental change research, the framework highlights nine global change processes where human activities affect Earth system functioning.
Crossing boundaries increases the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes. The impacts of these changes will not necessarily be immediate or drastic, but together the boundaries mark a critical threshold for risks to societies and the biosphere we are part of.
Planetary boundaries are interdependent. This means we cannot consider planetary boundaries in isolation in any decision-making on sustainability. Action that affects one process in the planetary boundaries framework will affect the risks of the other processes. Only by respecting all nine boundaries can we maintain the safe operating space for humanity.
The planetary boundaries were first proposed in 2009 by a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists led by Centre founder Johan Rockström. The first time all nine boundaries were fully assessed was in 2023.
Over the years, the planetary boundaries framework has generated enormous interest. At the Centre, many researchers work with planetary boundaries, including Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Ingo Fetzer, Johan Rockström, Laura Pereira, Jonathan Donges, Tiina Häyhä, Albert Norström, Beatrice Crona and David Collste.
Centre researchers develop and use the framework within science, policy, and practice. Numerous studies on it have been published in high-ranking academic publications.
Since 2024, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research uses the planetary boundaries framework for its Planetary Health Check, updated yearly. Find the new report here »
The 2025 update to the Planetary boundaries. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Credit: "Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Sakschewski and Caesar et al. 2025".
The nine planetary boundaries
Planetary boundary science over time
2025
In this year's version of the yearly report The Planetary Health Check, scientists assess for the first time that Ocean Acidification is the seventh transgressed Planetary Boundary.
2023
All boundaries are now quantitatively assessed in the third major update to the framework, published in Science Advances. Six boundaries were transgressed and pressure was increasing on all boundary processes except ozone depletion.
New scientific evidence enabled the team to quantify the boundary of Atmospheric Aerosol Loading, which according to the study was not transgressed yet despite rising pressures.
2015
The second update of the whole framework was published in Science. It stated that society’s activities have pushed climate change, biodiversity loss, shifts in nutrient cycles (nitrogen and phosphorus), and land use beyond the boundaries into unprecedented territory.
2009
The original conceptualisation of the Planetary Boundaries framework was first published in Ecology & Society and later presented and discussed in Nature: A safe operating space for humanity.
The evolution of the planetary boundaries framework. Licenced under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Credit: Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. Based on Sakschewski and Caesar et al. 2025, Richardson et al. 2023, Steffen et al. 2015, and Rockström et al. 2009).
Planetary boundaries education
Planetary boundaries in policy and practice
Zoom imageKey features informing (bottom) and drawing on (top) the Planetary Boundary (PB) framework, including science (grey), global policy (blue), regions/countries/cities (red) business (purple), Anthropocene evidence (orange), Earth system dynamics (teal) and palaeoclimate research (brown). PB science is not only informed by multiple strands of scientific enquiry but has influenced academia and policy across disciplines and sectors. SDG, Sustainable Development Goals. First published in Nature "Planetary Boundaries guide humanity's future on Earth".
Since its origin in 2009, the concept of planetary boundaries has become mainstream in global sustainability, and is increasingly adopted across business, finance, policy and civil society, as a framework guiding sustainable development in the Anthropocene.
Several regions, nations, and cities have used the planetary boundary framework to assess their global environmental impacts or have aligned
their environmental aspirations with it.
The planetary boundaries form the basis for legally binding EU action plans, and several European countries have further separately assessed
the contribution of their respective countries to the planetary boundaries.
The 2020 report ‘Planetary Boundaries New Zealand’ translates the planetary boundaries framework to show New Zealand’s global environmental connections and quantifies where our country sits in terms of operating within environmentally safe boundaries.
The planetary boundaries framework similarly resonates with some segments of the business community. Among others, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development incorporated planetary boundaries into its 2050 vision.
This timeline provides an overview of the influence that the framework has had so far. It is part of a scientific article published in 2025.
Key publications on Planetary boundaries
Richardson, J., Steffen W., Lucht, W., Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S.E., Donges, J.F., Fetzer, I. et al. 2023. Earth beyond six of nine Planetary Boundaries. Science Advances, 9, 37.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.E. Fetzer, I. et al. 2015. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347: 736, 1259855
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å. et al. 2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461: 472-475 DOI 10.1038/461472a
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å. et al. 2009. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society 14(2): 3
