Several transnational corporations, investors, international organizations, and philanthropies have formed coalitions to respond to global social and environmental challenges. Do these coalitions, consisting of large-scale actors, have the capacity to contribute to the sustainability transformations that are needed, or do they perpetuate the same systemic dynamics that created the problems in the first place? We investigate this question by comparing publicly available information from five coalitions working on financial and food systems sustainability.

This paper examines whether large-scale actor coalitions (LSACs) may contribute to transformations toward equitable and sustainable futures. We use a ‘rapid assessment’ 20-variable framework to collect and analyze empirical data from five food and finance coalitions to identify their roles and capacities for transformative change. Our results indicate that LSACs implement distinct strategies to reach their goals. More specifically, due to their diverse set-ups, LSACs have the ability to raise awareness of sustainability issues, utilize ties to push forward agendas, engage in institutional policy-shaping processes, experiment with solutions, and showcase promising niche initiatives. We identify ways that LSACs’ actions can enable efforts of other change-makers who aim to change the food and finance systems and contribute to systems with high and diverse capacities for transformative change. We also discuss why the roles and lack of certain capacities of LSACs might hinder the creation of enabling conditions for transformative change within the food and finance sectors.

Coalitions consisting of powerful actors have a range of transformative capacities that, under certain conditions, can support systemic transformations within their sectors.

As cities like Beijing expand rapidly, green and blue spaces (GBS)—essential for ecosystem services (ESs) such as clean air, flood control, and recreation—are increasingly threatened. This 20-year study examines how urban expansion and policy interventions have shaped Beijing’s GBS. While green initiatives have increased natural areas, unchecked urban sprawl has fragmented these spaces, reducing their environmental benefits. Satellite data and urban planning analyses underscore a key lesson: maintaining well-connected natural zones is critical for urban resilience. These findings are broadly applicable for rapidly growing cities globally, urging urban planners to integrate ecological conservation with development, and to safeguard healthy environments and vibrant communities.

This study quantifies the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban GBS in Beijing, evaluating their essential role in delivering ESs and strengthening urban resilience. Although China has achieved substantial progress in urban greening, the ecological impacts of rapid urbanization on GBS configuration and connectivity have not been comprehensively quantified. Using an integrated analytical framework combining principal component analysis and multiple linear regression, we reveal how urban development strategies have shaped GBS dynamics over two decades. A spatially explicit analysis, utilizing geographically weighted regression, further elucidates the heterogeneous relationships among the normalized difference vegetation index, human footprint index, and ESs delivery capacity. Notably, socioeconomic incentives and green infrastructure governance—especially objective indicators such as forest, garden, and greenspace area—have effectively driven GBS expansion. However, urban expansion has led to pronounced fragmentation of peri-urban GBS, suggesting potential degradation of their ecosystem service support functions. These findings emphasize the need for adaptive GBS management strategies that balance ecological conservation with sustainable urban growth in rapidly developing cities.

Urban growth fragments green and blue spaces, reducing vital ecosystem services. Balancing conservation with development is essential for sustainable cities.

Humans are currently grappling with the challenge of nitrogen (N) management, which involves a multidimensional trade-off between the benefits of N use and the consequences of N pollution. For this study, a deliberative experiment was conducted in which five N scientists, divided into two groups, envisioned the future of NH3 use in the 2050s, adopting the perspective of an imaginary future generation. Through this experience, the study encourages scientists to adopt the proposed framework and embrace freedom to explore desirable future visions, in addition to their usual task of empirically establishing universal disciplinary knowledge.

Humans are currently grappling with the challenge of nitrogen (N) management, which involves a multidimensional trade-off between the benefits of N use and the consequences of N pollution. The urgency to address this issue is already pronounced and may escalate further due to the emergence of ammonia (NH3) as a carbon-free energy resource. For this study, a deliberative experiment was conducted in which five N scientists, divided into two groups, envisioned the future of NH3 use in the 2050s, adopting the perspective of an imaginary future generation. The study revealed that some scientists encountered what is referred to in this study as the ‘positivist gap’, which involves difficulties forming narratives about unpredictable futures that rely on arbitrary assumptions. From this experience, this study develops and illustrates a framework that incorporates (i) Future Design workshops and (ii) abstracting operation for the workshop outputs. Although conducted in Japan, this study aims to inspire similar research in other countries.

A visioning experiment showed how scientists handle nitrogen trade-offs, imagining NH₃’s roles in a complex 2050 world.

The need for critical minerals for various technologies for commercial and defense use has led to a range of national policy interventions. However, many of these new laws to encourage mining, or protect local industries have not considered as scientific data on mineral reserves or the economic viability of setting specific targets. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act is a pivotal case in point that illustrates this challenge. We present a review of the range of laws and policies that have been set forth worldwide.

Growing international conflict between countries that have large mineral production and processing capacity and those which are in demand of critical raw materials for new technologies has led to a proliferation of policies that promote resource nationalism or ‘friend-shoring’. We analyzed over 400 critical raw material policies to date that have been documented by the International Energy Agency's policy tracking tool and present the findings of the six most active jurisdictions. The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act which came into force in May 2024 stands out as the most significant legislative step taken thus far but needs better interface with environmental and social data on impacts and benefits. By analyzing the challenges faced by lithium mining projects across a range of technologies and geographic locations in Europe, we suggest the use of data generated from life cycle analyses, economic geological calculations, and ecosystem service valuation in improving the implementation of such policies and also mitigate social conflicts.

There are now more than 400 critical raw material policies worldwide, but they need to be predicated in economic and geological data to be effective.

In response to the concerns of a growing number of crises, we trace the temporal trends, distribution, and co-occurrences of shocks – sudden events with noticeable impacts – on 175 countries from 1970 to 2019. Our analysis shows that shocks have not evolved uniformly over time and space: after becoming more co-occurring between 1970 and 2000, they then showed a regionally dependent shift in patterns. Our results highlight that regional differentiation is not incidental but constitutive of polycrisis dynamics, and that any effort to theorize, anticipate, or navigate polycrisis must account for this spatial heterogeneity.

Polycrisis has emerged as a new property of the Anthropocene. Defined as the convergence of crises across multiple systems, polycrisis calls for a paradigm shift in how crises are perceived and managed. Characterizing polycrisis dynamics is the first step in that direction but is made difficult by the complex and non-linear mechanisms at play. To overcome this challenge, we adopt a social-ecological systems approach to decompose polycrisis dynamics into two interrelated processes: shocks – sudden events with noticeable impacts, and creeping changes – slow processes that have a potential significant impact on society or the biosphere. We then develop and analyse a harmonized database capturing the occurrence of six categories of shocks (climatic, geophysical, ecological, economic, technological, and conflict-related) across 175 countries between 1970 and 2019. Our analysis reveals a significant rise in shock co-occurrences until 2000, particularly at the intersection of conflict, climate, and technological disruptions. After 2000, co-occurrence began plateauing or declining in all regions, yet at different levels. Our findings highlight the importance of a regionalized and typologically nuanced approach to understanding polycrisis. Our work also paves the way to an integration of polycrisis theory and multi-hazard methodologies for developing a more effective and crisis management ecosystem.

Dynamics of the polycrisis reveal regional differences, with a possible shift in the interaction of shocks from 2000.

Avocados are a widely consumed fruit and are part of many Latin American cuisines and plant-based diets globally. However, producing avocados is water-intensive, and plantations can cause soil erosion and water stress. In Chile, avocados are produced in semiarid zones and require irrigation. They are widely consumed locally but are increasingly exported to meet growing global demand. This causes significant local conflicts over water, especially because of the system of private water rights in Chile. There are many gaps in understanding the complex and interconnected system of avocado production and international markets, especially its impacts on local communities and biodiversity.

The popularity of avocados has increased globally in alternative diets, alongside its integral role in Latin American cuisine. In Chile, avocados are grown extensively and intensively in orchards in the dry and Mediterranean climate of Central Chile. Avocado is a water-demanding crop and the severe water crisis in Chile has called attention to the conflicts caused by its water use. As most of the pressure to produce avocado comes from international demand but results in impacts on native ecosystems and local communities, avocado production in Chile is an example of a telecoupled system. Here, we characterize avocado production as a telecoupled social–ecological system in order to identify gaps in knowledge, based on a review of key studies. Research priorities include how to improve water-use efficiency, especially in the context of climate change; the impacts on biodiversity; and the socioeconomic dynamics between local communities, trade, and governance. The analysis is constrained by limited access to data and few interdisciplinary studies on the matter. To reduce the impacts of avocado production and increase its sustainability, there is an urgent need to amplify the interdisciplinary research that emphasizes the interconnections between the social and ecological components in avocado production in Chile.

Global avocado demand fuels local conflicts in Chile due to water stress and social–ecological pressures on communities.

How can wellbeing for all be improved while reducing risks of destabilising the biosphere? This ambition underlies the 2030 Agenda but analysing whether it is possible in the long-term requires linking global socioeconomic developments with life-supporting Earth systems and incorporating feedbacks between them. The Earth4All initiative explores integrated developments of human wellbeing and environmental pressures up to 2100 based on expert elicitation and an integrated global systems model. The relatively simple Earth4All model focuses on quantifying and capturing some high-level feedback between socioeconomic and environmental domains. It analyses economic transformations to increase wellbeing worldwide and increase social cohesion to create conditions that are more likely to reduce pressures on planetary boundaries. The model includes two key novelties: a social tension index and a wellbeing index, to track societal progress this century. The scenarios suggest that today's dominant economic policies are likely to lead to rising social tensions, worsening environmental pressures, and declining wellbeing. In the coming decades, unchecked rising social tensions, we hypothesise, will make it more difficult to build a large consensus around long-term industrial policy and behavioural changes needed to respect planetary boundaries. We propose five extraordinary turnarounds around poverty, inequality, empowerment, energy and food that in the model world can shift the economy off the current trajectory, improve human wellbeing at a global scale, reduce social tensions and ease environmental pressures. The model, the five (exogenous) turnarounds and the resulting two scenarios can be used as science-policy boundary objects in discussions on future trajectories.

Our world is facing a convergence of environmental, health, security, and social crises. These issues demand urgent, systemic solutions now that address not only environmental but also social dimensions. Weak political responses have stalled progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. We have developed scenarios that explore interconnections between possible climate futures, rising living costs, and increasing inequalities that fuel populism and undermine democracy to the year 2100. We propose five turnaround solutions – energy, food and land systems, inequality, poverty, and gender equality – that if enacted are likely to provide wellbeing for a majority of people plus greater social cohesion. This will support long-term industrial policies and behavioural change to reduce emissions and protect the biosphere toward a long-term goal of living on a relatively stable planet.

Our dominant economic model is destabilising societies and the planet. Earth4All found 5 turnarounds for real system change.

India needs to balance carbon mitigation with its developmental priorities. The Indian district acts as an important administrative site where national- and state-level developmental and environmental policies are translated into ground-level implementation. In this work, we provide a replicable approach to analyze the evolution of district-level carbon emissions in near real-time. Our work shows that emissions are concentrated in a small number of districts, with this concentration increasing over time. We also find significant inter-district variation in the growth of emissions. We demonstrate the utility of high-resolution emissions data through three examples.

With India accounting for a growing share of world emissions, the country's carbon emissions trajectory is important from a global mitigation perspective. At the same time, India is simultaneously attempting to achieve both environmental and developmental goals. The district acts as an administrative site that is important for India's future trajectory, as developmental and environmental policies at the national and state levels get translated to actual implementation at the district level. In this work, we study the evolution of carbon emissions at the district level in India. We rely on the GRACED dataset that provides daily emissions information for various sectors at a spatial resolution of 0.1°. We find that 7% of districts account for ∼50% of total emissions, while the bottom 50% contribute less than 9%. This spatial concentration is intensifying over time. We also document variations in the contribution of different sectors to total emissions over the year. We demonstrate the utility of high-resolution emissions data through three examples. Our approach can aid researchers and policymakers in developing targeted interventions as it is easily replicable, goes beyond existing work in its spatial and temporal resolution, and can be adapted to study district emissions in near-real time.

We provide a replicable approach to assess the evolution of India's district-level carbon emissions in near-real-time.

This paper reviews efforts to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement: to limit global warming to well below 2°C and ideally to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The paper shows how the likelihood of breaching these thresholds presents the need for additional measures, in mitigation and intervention. Three climate actions are discussed: emissions reduction, greenhouse gas removal, and solar radiation modification. These actions differ in timescale and current state of knowledge. Progress must intensify if they are to aid in securing a safe and stable climate for future generations.

Current assessments of global greenhouse gas emissions suggest the Paris Agreement temperature thresholds of 1.5°C and 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels could be breached. The impacts on humans and ecosystems could be severe. Global trends suggest a prolonged reliance on fossil fuels. Additional measures to limit global warming are therefore needed. Here, we review three climate actions: emissions reduction, greenhouse gas removal (GGR), and solar radiation modification (SRM). Emissions reduction requires shifting energy production away from fossil fuels (the primary contribution of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions), reducing energy use in key sectors, and optimising land management. GGR efforts must scale sustainably in the near term. The scale-up of novel methods is constrained by economic and technological challenges and, in some cases, limited knowledge. SRM has received growing attention, given the immediate impacts of global warming and the protracted timescales of emissions reduction and GGR. Robust research and governance frameworks are needed to assess the risks posed by SRM, alongside the risks of forgoing SRM. These three actions could enable society to fulfil the Paris Agreement, limiting global warming and its impacts while atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are reduced to sustainable levels.

The progress of climate mitigation and intervention towards securing a sustainable future in a safe and stable climate.

We live in a time of significant global risk. Some research has focused on understanding systemic sources of this risk, while other research has focused on possible worst-case outcomes. In this article, we bring together these two areas of research and provide a simple conceptual framework that shows how emergent features of the global system contribute to the risk of global catastrophe.

Humanity faces a complex and dangerous global risk landscape, and many different terms and concepts have been used to make sense of it. One broad strand of research characterises how risk emerges within the complex global system, using concepts like systemic risk, Anthropocene risk, synchronous failure, negative social tipping points, and polycrisis. Another focuses on possible worst-case outcomes, using concepts like global catastrophic risk (GCR), existential risk, and extinction risk. Despite their clear relevance to each other, connections between these two strands remain limited. Here, we provide a simple conceptual framework that synthesises these research strands and shows how emergent properties of the global system contribute to the risk of global catastrophic outcomes. In particular, we show that much of GCR stems from the interaction of hazards and vulnerabilities that arise endogenously within the global system, and how ‘systems thinking’ and complex adaptive systems theory can help illuminate this. We also highlight some unique challenges that systemic sources of GCR pose for risk assessment and mitigation, discuss insights for policy, and outline potential paths forward.

The global system is generating global catastrophic risk.

The world is facing multiple interconnected crises, from climate change and economic instability to social inequalities and geopolitical tensions. These crises do not occur in isolation; instead, they interact, reinforce each other, and create unexpected ripple effects – forming what is known as a polycrisis. Traditional ways of analysing problems often fail to grasp these interdependencies, making it difficult to find effective responses. We draw on system archetypes to describe and exemplify three polycrisis patterns. These provide a structured way to analyse how multiple crises unfold and interact, as well as insights into how to navigate such complexity.

The concept of a polycrisis describes the complex interconnections between global issues, which can lead to unexpected emergent behaviours and the possible convergence of undesirable impacts. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for anticipating compounded effects and for identifying leverage points for effective intervention. We propose that system archetypes – generic structures in system dynamics that capture recurring patterns of behaviour – can serve as a useful analytical tool to study polycrises. Specifically, we reinterpret three key system archetypes in this context: Converging Constraints (based on the Limits to Growth system archetype), Deepening Divides (based on Success to the Successful system archetype), and Crisis Deferral (drawing from the Policy Resistance system archetype). These patterns illustrate how resource limitations, structural inequalities, and short-term solutions can sustain or worsen crisis dynamics. Using real-world examples, we show how polycrisis patterns can be employed to map feedback structures between interacting crises and to guide effective interventions. Our work contributes to a more structured and systemic understanding of polycrises, by providing a tool to help researchers and policymakers better anticipate, navigate, and mitigate their effects.

‘Polycrisis patterns reveal how crises like climate change, economic instability, and inequality interact, amplifying their impacts’.

Cosmetics, including makeup, perfumes, and facial care products, have a significant impact on the environment and society, particularly as they are used by many consumers daily. The industry's continued growth further contributes to this impact. This paper reviews 365 articles on existing research on sustainable cosmetics. Findings of this review showed that Italy, Brazil, and Spain are the countries with the highest number of research articles. It was also noted that many studies were from chemical and pharmaceutical disciplines, whereas there is minimal research through a social science lens. These insights provide avenues for future sustainability research in the cosmetics industry.

Cosmetics have become an essential part of daily life, but their impact on the environment and society cannot be ignored. With the cosmetics industry experiencing almost continuous growth, it is imperative to ensure its sustainability. While several studies have examined various aspects of cosmetics and sustainability, there is no comprehensive overview of the literature in this field. To address this gap, this review aims to categorize the extant literature thematically and identify areas that require further research. A systematic review of 365 selected journal articles published from 1992 to 2022 revealed several insights. Firstly, the number of publications in this area has increased significantly over the years. Secondly, Italy has the highest number of publications, and Sustainability is the most popular publication outlet. Thirdly, research output from chemistry, chemical engineering, and pharmacy disciplines is abundant, while social science disciplines have comparatively few studies. Fourthly, experimental procedures are the most commonly used research methods. Finally, ‘process and technology’ is the most studied area, while ‘stakeholder behavior’ is the least studied area. These findings highlight research gaps and suggest future research directions to promote sustainability in the cosmetics industry.

This review looks at 30 years of research on sustainable cosmetics and identifies areas that need to be explored.

This study addresses the challenge of climate change by exploring how psychological qualities and meditation practices may influence pro-environmental behavior among decision-makers, by surveying 185 participants. The research found that meditation practices and compassion toward others are linked to more pro-environmental actions. Nature connectedness emerged as a key factor related to enhanced mindfulness, compassion toward others and self, and environmental efforts. Additionally, pro-environmental efforts at work were related to more engagement across the organization, including management. These findings highlight the potential of integrating personal growth practices into sustainability promoting strategies, suggesting that fostering compassion and mindfulness may support pro-environmental action.

Current policy approaches addressing climate change have been insufficient. Integrative approaches linking inner and outer factors of behavior change, both at the private and organizational level, have been called for. The aim of the present study was thus to conceptualize and test a model of interlinkages between trainable transformative psychological qualities, meditation practice, wellbeing, stress, and pro-environmental behaviors in the private and organizational context, among decision-makers (N = 185) who responded to a survey of self-completion measures covering the topics above. Results show that meditation practices and longer practice duration were associated with more pro-environmental behavior, mindfulness facets, and wellbeing. Mindfulness facets and self-compassion were associated with higher wellbeing and lower stress, but not pro-environmental behavior. Importantly, higher compassion toward others was associated with more pro-environmental behavior but was not associated with own wellbeing and stress. Greater nature connectedness was associated with more pro-environmental behavior in private- and work life, mindfulness facets, compassion toward others, self-compassion, and longer meditation duration. Furthermore, at work, personal pro-environmental efforts were associated with such efforts by others in the organization, including management, and such efforts were also associated with overall integration of sustainability work in the organization. The results can help guide future interventions.

Nature connectedness, compassion toward others, and meditation related to private and work life pro-environmental behaviors.

This study combines revolutionary theory with emerging polycrisis discourses to show how various international and national factors and events can become intertwined, creating polycrisis events that can lead to revolutionary moments. Revolutionary moments can further contribute to stresses that cause polycrisis or systemic dysfunction elsewhere, due to our entanglement of global systems. Through the help of two case studies, the Young Turk Revolution and the Arab Spring, this study highlights how revolutions emerge and how they can unfold in the future.

Revolutions – the overthrow or unseating of governmental forces through mass mobilization – have played a crucial role in major societal transformations throughout history (Lawson, 2019, Anatomies of revolution; Goldstone, 2014, Revolutions: A very short introduction). One component of revolutionary theory, past and present, are the ways different factors and forces interact to create revolutionary moments, specifically how international/transnational and internal societal events interconnect to generate revolutionary situations, trajectories, and outcomes. Revolutionary theorist George Lawson (2019) notes that global networks are intermeshed in that they can produce multiple, complex stressors and triggers that cause revolution in what he terms an ‘inter-social approach’. Building on these insights, we argue here through the case studies of the Young Turk Revolution and Arab Spring that the conceptualization of polycrisis as a causal entanglement of crises in multiple global systems provides a critical lens to understand revolutions.

In an age of polycrisis, risk of revolution increases. Explore how revolutions form and learn their future paths.

Achieving sustainability on the ground poses a challenge in decoding globallydefined goals, such as sustainable development goals, and aligning them withlocal perspectives and realities. This decoding necessitates theunderstanding of the multifaceted dimensions of the sustainabilitychallenges in a given context, including their underlying causes. In casestudies from Brazilian drylands, we illustrate how an enhanced multiscaleparticipatory method, combined with systems thinking tools, can shed lighton systemic structures that currently entrench unsustainable developmenttrajectories. This method offers insights into co-designing potentialpathways toward sustainable futures and unlocking transformative capacitiesof the local population.

Translating United Nations global sustainable development goals (SDGs) intoactions that address local realities and aspirations is an urgent challenge.It requires new thinking and approaches that foster the discussion about themain challenges to implementing the SDGs at multiple levels. This paperpresents a novel multiscale participatory approach that combines the popularThree Horizons diagram with the formalism of causal loop diagrams in systemsthinking. We present results from six multi-stakeholder dialogues heldacross drylands in Brazil with a focus on desired futures aligned with SDGs.Focusing on identifying the root causes and systemic structures ofunsustainability, participants identified lock-ins, leverage points, andinterventions for how these could be changed. The core lock-ins are thediscontinuity of public policies, and the historical land and powerconcentration reinforced by the current expansion of large-scaleagricultural, mining, and energy projects. The proposed interventions arestructural and – if implemented – would contribute toachieving SDGs in an integrated manner. The unique approach developed inthis study can provide leverage as it bridges the inclusivity ofparticipatory visioning with the change potential of systems thinking toolsto tackle root causes and unleash societal transformations.

We are not achieving SDGs. Understanding root causes of unsustainability iscritical to move toward sustainable and just futures.

There is significant focus on the global polycrisis currently – and rightfully so, considering the threat to societies around the world that converging environmental, social, political, and economic challenges pose. However, little is said about what comes after the polycrisis. Are there methods to address the polycrisis in ways that would inherently help establish a ‘better’ post-polycrisis period (PPP) (i.e. preserving more of what sustains the many dimensions of human wellbeing while maintaining the integrity of the biosphere and local ecosystems)? This article explores that question, examining potential interventions that could lead to less suffering both during the polycrisis period and PPP.

This article explores how polycrisis interventions can be designed to be the most effective in setting up a better post-polycrisis outcome, while also improving the polycrisis response potential. It starts by setting up a 2 × 2 matrix to explore interventions that (1) improve outcomes during the polycrisis (but not the post-polycrisis period [PPP]), (2) improve outcomes post-polycrisis (but not during the polycrisis); (3) improve neither, and (4) improve both. The article explores some relevant and timely examples in each of the four quadrants, with particular focus on the quadrant in which interventions improve outcomes both for the polycrisis period and PPP. Particular attention is given, within that quadrant, to: reducing nuclear arsenals, population degrowth, economic degrowth, strengthening local agriculture, low-tech and appropriate technologies, and cultivating deeper respect for Gaia. In conclusion, the article recognizes that although it may be difficult, even impossible, to proactively and effectively plan for the PPP, some measures can be taken even now. Further, failing to put this on societal agendas means planning for and addressing long-term wellbeing will only occur by chance, increasing the odds of an extended period of crisis and/or a loss of key knowledge and civilizational advances gained.

Are there interventions to improve human and ecological wellbeing both in the polycrisis and the period that comes after?

The term polycrisis refers to simultaneous and interconnected crises that amplify each other's effects. Understanding how crises spread is crucial for understanding how a polycrisis operates. This article explores the conditions under which crises transmit across systems. By examining various theories – from complexity thinking to epidemiology – it discusses to importance of several conducive conditions and system resilience in shaping crisis transmission. The polycrisis concept underscores the need for interdisciplinary approaches to address interconnected global challenges. By identifying how crises spread, policymakers and researchers can better anticipate and mitigate their impacts, fostering resilience in the face of growing systemic risks.

The concept of the polycrisis builds on the assumption that crises are interconnected. This suggests important processes of crisis transmission operate. However, beyond initial modelling we do not know much about how crisis transmission works. For this reason, this article makes a conceptual contribution by presenting a variety of conditions for crisis transmission. It applies an eclectic and inter-disciplinary approach, presenting a diversity of conceptual arguments addressing when and how crises can spread. These include but are not limited to: conceptualizing crisis boundaries and large impact events, neofunctionalism, rational choice theory, assemblage theory, complexity thinking, and epidemiological and evolutionary approaches. Lastly, crisis transmission also depends on the ability to cope with crises and thus resilience plays an important role.

Crisis transmission informs how a polycrisis operates. Discontinuing transmission helps building resilience.

The design of food systems is a common theme that requires stakeholders to prioritize long-term perspectives and balance between benefits for the present and future generations. Building on this theme, this study aims to demonstrate an intervention in individuals' policy preferences by helping them voluntarily adopt values for long-term policies and assessing its effectiveness through online deliberation experiments involving randomly selected consumers. The findings indicate that interventions incorporating the concept of imaginary future generations significantly influence individuals' food preferences and values.

Food systems are indispensable for the survival of the present generation and simultaneously have various effects on future generations. Therefore, the design of food systems is a typical theme requiring stakeholders to find value in a long-term perspective that achieves an appropriate balance between the benefits for the present and future generations. In this context, this study aims to demonstrate an intervention in individuals' policy preferences by assisting them in voluntarily acquiring values for long-term policies and verifying their effectiveness through online deliberation experiments with randomly selected food consumers (n = 153). The intervention used the future design method and the core concept of imaginary future people. The topic of this experimental study is policies on rice production and consumption in Japan. The findings suggest that interventions that incorporate the concept of imaginary future generations significantly influence individuals' food preferences and values, encouraging a shift toward a sustainable system through fundamental transformation rather than maintaining the current status quo. Based on these results, the authors discuss a pathway toward achieving a sustainable food system, in which collaborative efforts that transcend the individual positions of stakeholders are driven by forming a group identity among individuals willing to adopt the viewpoint of future generations.

The design of food systems is a common theme that requires stakeholders to prioritize long-term perspectives and balance between benefits for the present and future generations. Building on this theme, this study aims to demonstrate an intervention in individuals' policy preferences by helping them voluntarily adopt values for long-term policies and assessing its effectiveness through online deliberation experiments involving randomly selected consumers. The findings indicate that interventions incorporating the concept of imaginary future generations significantly influence individuals' food preferences and values. This concept has the potential to contribute to the realization of a sustainable food system through the establishment of collaborative relationships among various stakeholders.

The polycrisis, an inadvertent peril of our own making, poses an existential threat to the modern world. Given humanity's innate desire to live safely, and to prosper, what explains this self-inflicted danger? Root causes of the polycrisis are both material and ideational. This essay focuses on the latter, exploring the impact of an exaggerated sense of human exceptionalism which legitimizes profligate behavior and releases us from accountability to each other, to the planet, and to future generations.

The polycrisis presents an existential threat to modern civilization on Earth. Neither desirable nor purposeful, it is an inadvertent consequence of collective human agency, a dangerous phenomenon with the power to override prudent, morally sound behavior. Emerging from the totality of multiple global stresses interlinked by myriad causal pathways, the polycrisis is a coherent entity which can, and does, amplify and accelerate local crises (such as supply chain disruptions, political uprisings and war, or natural catastrophes) into a cascading storm of alarming scale and intensity. I argue that these material features of the polycrisis find their origin in and are authorized by an underlying ideational stratum – a belief system – which lends legitimacy and strong forward momentum to the creation of entangled component stresses. This stratum features an exaggerated sense of human exceptionalism, an anthropocentric zeitgeist, and a licentious conception of freedom, all of which have released us from accountability to each other, to ethical forbearance, to future generations, and to the planet.

Multiple entangled stresses threaten our world. This ‘polycrisis’ emerges from the pathology of human exceptionalism.