Planetary Boundaries Framework Research Articles

Aquatic deoxygenation as a planetary boundary and key regulator of Earth system stability.

Planetary boundaries represent thresholds in major Earth system processes that are sensitive to human activity and control global-scale habitability and stability. These processes are interconnected such that movement of one planetary boundary process can alter the likelihood of crossing other boundaries. Here we argue that the observed deoxygenation of the Earth's freshwater and marine ecosystems represents an additional planetary boundary process that is critical to the integrity of Earth's ecological and social systems, and both regulates and responds to ongoing changes in other planetary boundary processes. Research on the rapid and ongoing deoxygenation of Earth's aquatic habitats indicates that relevant, critical oxygen thresholds are being approached at rates comparable to other planetary boundary processes. Concerted global monitoring, research and policy efforts are needed to address the challenges brought on by rapid deoxygenation, and the expansion of the planetary boundaries framework to include deoxygenation as a boundary helps to focus those efforts.

Expanding the focus of the One Health concept: links between the Earth-system processes of the planetary boundaries framework and antibiotic resistance.

The scientific community warns that our impact on planet Earth is so acute that we are crossing several of the planetary boundaries that demarcate the safe operating space for humankind. Besides, there is mounting evidence of serious effects on people's health derived from the ongoing environmental degradation. Regarding human health, the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria is one of the most critical public health issues worldwide. Relevantly, antibiotic resistance has been claimed to be the quintessential One Health issue. The One Health concept links human, animal, and environmental health, but it is frequently only focused on the risk of zoonotic pathogens to public health or, to a lesser extent, the impact of contaminants on human health, i.e.,adverse effects on human health coming from the other two One Health "compartments". It is recurrently claimed that antibiotic resistance must be approached from a One Health perspective, but such statement often only refers to the connection between the use of antibiotics in veterinary practice and the antibiotic resistance crisis, or theimpact of contaminants (antibiotics, heavy metals, disinfectants, etc.) on antibiotic resistance. Nonetheless, the nine Earth-system processes considered in the planetary boundaries framework can be directly or indirectly linked to antibiotic resistance. Here, some of the main links between those processes and the dissemination of antibiotic resistance are described. The ultimate goal is to expand the focus of the One Health concept by pointing out the links between critical Earth-system processes and the One Health quintessential issue, i.e.,antibiotic resistance.

Climate change critically affects the status of the land-system change planetary boundary

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 climate output from ten phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project models for CO2 levels ranging from 350 ppm to 1000 ppm). We focus on climate change-induced shifts of Earth’s major forest biomes, the control variable for the land-system change boundary, both by the end of this century and, to account for the long-term legacy effect, by the end of the millennium. Our simulations show that while staying within the 350 ppm climate change boundary co-stabilizes the land-system change boundary, breaching it (>450 ppm) leads to critical transgression of the latter, with greater severity the higher the ppm level rises and the more time passes. Specifically, this involves a poleward treeline shift, boreal forest dieback (nearly completely within its current area under extreme climate scenarios), competitive expansion of temperate forest into today’s boreal zone, and a slight tropical forest extension. These interacting changes also affect other planetary boundaries (freshwater change and biosphere integrity) and provide feedback to the climate change boundary itself. Our quantitative process-based study highlights the need for interactions to be studied for a systemic operationalization of the planetary boundaries framework.

A stepwise approach for determining absolute environmental sustainability targets for an electric vehicle battery

The transition from the ‘Holocene-like’ interglacial state towards the Anthropocene epoch, driven by human activities, poses risks of triggering tipping points of the Earth system. Such risks create the need for target-based product design strategies, that are aligned with the environmental carrying capacities, such as the planetary boundaries framework. In this study, we introduce a stepwise approach to determine absolute environmental sustainability targets during the product development process. The approach integrates top-down factors such as planetary boundaries, IPCC carbon budgets and sharing principles shaping these targets. Furthermore, we assess the influence of bottom-up factors such as the selection of raw material suppliers and production location in achieving them. The application of the approach is illustrated for the case study of a traction battery. The potential future applications and limitations of the proposed stepwise approach are discussed.Electric vehicle; Sustainable development; Absolute sustainability

Beyond Net-Zero: Societal Transformations towards Climate Positive Futures

“Addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.”Ban Ki-Moon, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Humanity is pushing the earth system beyond its natural limits. Rapid population growth and exponential consumption exert synergistic and compounded strains on our planet. Evidence of the untenable nature of this strain abounds, in the form of accelerated, widespread and intensifying climate change (United Nations, 2021), drastic reduction in biodiversity, overexploitation and depletion of natural resources, and degradation of ecosystems. Calculated by the Global Footprint Network, the Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) succinctly and illustratively captures this divergence between humanity’s ecological footprint and earth’s biocapacity. The EOD marks the point in the year when humanity’s demand for resources in a given year exceeds what the earth can replenish in that same year, and has come earlier and earlier since first calculated in 1971. In 2023, it fell on August 2 (Global Footprint Network), leaving us in an ecological deficit for the remaining part of the year. The science-based planetary boundaries framework developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre is another powerful visualisation of the state of our planetary systems. Their 2023 assessment reports that six of the nine planetary boundaries (e.g. freshwater change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, novels entities such as plastics, etc) have been transgressed, thereby heightening the risk of large-scale, abrupt, and irreversible environmental changes. (continued...)

Do boards care about planetary boundaries? A gender perspective on circular economy disclosures

AbstractThe need to develop environmentally respectful business activities has led academics to propose the circular economy (CE) as a more sustainable production and consumption model than the linear model, where interest groups demand greater disclosure of information that makes it possible to evaluate the business transition towards the CE. Also, the planetary boundaries framework provides thresholds for different natural processes that are affected by business activities, so in this research, we link the CE to planetary boundaries by designing a score, and we analyse the presence of female directors and the role women play in the presentation of CE information that attends to planetary boundaries. We also examine the effect that national cultures characterized by high power distance and masculinity can have on their performance. We use a sample of 832 companies around the world from 2011 to 2020. The results show that women directors promote the presentation of CE information at a global level and disaggregated by CE issues, framed within planetary boundaries—a relation that is reinforced in societies with high power distance.

An institutionalist political-economy perspective on social and environmental accounting

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).Design/methodology/approachBy adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.FindingsA SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.Practical implicationsThe proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.Originality/valueBased on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.

The impacts of the European chemical industry on the planetary boundaries

The European chemical industry plays a crucial role in the economy, manufacturing thousands of products that find applications across many sectors. On the other hand, the sector is also one of the largest energy consumers, and emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases, together with toxic, bioaccumulative and persistent chemicals. Acknowledging the need for a shift towards a greener industry model, this contribution assesses the absolute sustainability level of the chemical sector by contrasting the impacts it causes with the ecological capacity of the planet, as given by the planetary boundaries framework. Results indicate that impacts incurred by the European chemical industry transgress CO2-based thresholds significantly, with burdens on atmospheric CO2 concentration, energy imbalance, and ocean acidification being 15, 16 and 6 times larger than planetary limits. The biosphere integrity boundary, assessed here based on functional diversity, is also transgressed by 3 %. The five chemicals with the highest production volume, namely ammonia, polypropylene, high-density polyethylene, styrene, and benzene, are responsible for around 50 % of impacts in all the planetary boundaries. This suggests that they should be the target of dedicated research and policies. Finally, the study assesses a set of improvement pathways for the European chemical industry to become sustainable. It is found that the deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies to compensate for the greenhouse gases emitted by the sector would allow the chemical industry to meet all the planetary boundaries concurrently, yet burden-shifting would still cause other planetary boundaries to be deteriorated. This evidences the need to employ holistic approaches to assess the wide implications of any solution adopted within or outside the chemical industry.

Absolute Sustainability Assessment of Flue Gas Valorization to Ammonia and Synthetic Natural Gas.

Carbon capture and utilization has gained attention to potentially curb CO2 emissions while generating valuable chemicals. These technologies will coexist with fossil analogs, creating synergies to leverage circular economy principles. In this context, flue gas valorization from power plants can assist in the transition. Here, we assessed the absolute sustainability of a simulated integrated facility producing ammonia and synthetic natural gas from flue gas from a combined-cycle natural gas power plant based in Germany, using hydrogen from three water electrolysis technologies (proton exchange membrane, alkaline, and solid oxide cells), nitrogen, and CO2. For the first time, we applied the planetary boundaries (PBs) framework to a circular integrated system, evaluating its performance relative to the safe operating space. The PB-LCA assessment showed that the alternative technologies could significantly reduce, among others, the impact on climate change and biosphere integrity when compared to their fossil counterparts, which could be deemed unsustainable in climate change. Nevertheless, these alternative technologies could also lead to burden shifting and are not yet economically viable. Overall, the investigated process could smoothen the transition toward low-carbon technologies, but its potential collateral damages should be carefully considered. Furthermore, the application of the PBs provides an appealing framework to quantify the absolute sustainability level of integrated circular systems.

Early-stage analysis on developing different oat (Avena sativa L) added value fractions by ultrasound-assisted three-phase partition (UATPP): Effect of variables on yield and environmental impacts

This research explores an oat refinery using an ultrasound-assisted three-phase partition (UATPP) to obtain three value-added fractions (oil, protein, and fiber). Ultrasound-assisted pretreatment (time), salt (weight %), and butanol (volume %) were assessed against the mass extracted (weight %) at the different fractions by response surface methodology (RSM) and environmental impacts critical for the planetary boundaries framework by life cycle assessment (LCA). Experimental results showed an acceptable regression for predicting the different fractions and their environmental effects. The protein-rich phase (wt %) varied from 4.5 to 15.3 %, where the effect of salt (wt %) and butanol (vol %) was significant, while crude protein content (65–78 %) was affected by ultrasound pretreatment (time) and salt (wt %). The oil-rich phase extracted was between 5 and 8.6 % wt, showing a typical oat's fatty acid profile: oleic (38.18–42.81%), linoleic acid (25.51–33.86 %), and palmitic acid (20.25–23.54%). For this phase, the interaction of butanol with salt (wt %) and ultrasound pretreatment (min) was significant. The fiber-rich phase showed significance with salt (wt %) and ultrasound pretreatment ranging from 66.3 to 78.8 wt %. Moreover, their rheological characteristics (G′ and G″) seemed to change by the variation in oil content, like oat flour and starches. The optimization of the process to maximize protein and oil gave the following conditions: 15 min of ultrasound pretreatment, 4.5 salt (wt %), and 50 butanol (vol %). Regarding LCA, butanol manufacture was a hot spot on environmental indicators such as global warming (kg CO2 eq·kg−1), marine eutrophication (kg P·kg−1), freshwater eutrophication (kg N·kg−1), and freshwater consumption (m3·kg−1). Land use (m2·kg−1) impacts were mainly caused by running UATTP at high dilution ratios (typical at the lab scale). Activities such as solvent reduction and recirculation were found critical to minimize environmental impacts. This analysis can aid in foreseeing potential processing and environmental implications at an early stage of development, allowing better holistic decisions.

Level of decoupling between economic growth and environmental pressure on Earth-system processes

Ensuring economic growth without challenging the Earth's resiliency is crucial to achieving sustainable development. Capitalizing on the planetary boundaries framework as the limits to growing safely, here we present a temporal assessment of the link between economic growth and pressure exerted on the environment using the Exiobase database. By studying the degree of decoupling between absolute sustainability metrics and economic indicators, we find that strong decoupling at a global scale has not occurred in any planetary boundary, with the impact on the planetary boundaries increasing at a slower pace than the global gross domestic product but not decreasing in the studied period (1995 to 2019). Our results also reveal that some countries shifted burdens overseas, thereby exhibiting lower decoupling rates on a production-based basis (vs. consumption-based). Moreover, we found that countries responsible for exerting the highest stress on the planetary boundaries tend to transgress their downscaled safe operating space and present weak decoupling. Considering future economic growth, tailored strategies will be needed to operate within the limits of the Earth, including complementing the gross domestic product with additional indicators to drive human development sustainably.

Urea production: An absolute environmental sustainability assessment

The demand for urea, as the most popular global nitrogen fertilizer, is on the rise and as such, its performance in an environmentally sustainable perspective relative to planetary boundaries is high on the agenda. The increasing interest in nitrogen fertilizers is to improve agricultural methods for a better production rate, but can it become environmentally sustainable? Which is due to the significant contribution of fertilizers in the anthropogenic impacts of industrial activities on nature, should be considered. Here, a system analysis based on real data using life cycle assessment linked to the planetary boundaries framework (PB-LCIA) was conducted to study the performance of total urea consumption in Iran, 1.8E+6 metric tons per year. In LCA, midpoint and endpoint methods (ReCiPe 2016) and for AESA, a PB-LCIA methodology was utilized. Results showed that global warming potential, freshwater eutrophication, and marine eutrophication contribute 1.37E+09 kg CO2 eq, 1.63E+04 kg P eq, and 1.28E+04 kg N eq, respectively, while the GHG emissions of combustion, electricity, and natural gas sweetening have the most contribution to global warming by 35, 24 & 15 %, respectively. Regarding absolute sustainability, global warming, ocean acidification, and biochemical N exceed this activity's assigned share of safe operating space (SoSOS). However, choosing different sharing principles can influence to what extent this activity exceeds or stays within the assigned SoSOS; accordingly, the Nitrogen Biogeochemical flows depend on the sharing principle. Ultimately, the total Iranian urea consumption as fertilizer is not absolutely sustainable. The promising point is that producing sustainable electricity and feedstocks could lead to more sustainable urea fertilizers.

Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries.

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. As primary production drives Earth system biosphere functions, human appropriation of net primary production is proposed as a control variable for functional biosphere integrity. This boundary is also transgressed. Earth system modeling of different levels of the transgression of the climate and land system change boundaries illustrates that these anthropogenic impacts on Earth system must be considered in a systemic context.

Rethinking Planetary Boundaries: Accounting for Ecological Limits

ABSTRACT The concept of planetary boundaries offers a framework for understanding and managing humanity’s impact on Earth’s ecological systems. These boundaries mean to delineate a safe operating space in which human activities must remain to ensure the stability of critical Earth processes. Notwithstanding its potential, the planetary boundaries framework faces criticism for its reductionist nature, technocratic approach, and the lack of consideration given to social issues. This commentary explores current accounting research relating to planetary boundaries and emphasises the need for a broader range of interdisciplinary, inclusive, and holistic approaches towards accounting for ecological limits. Drawing from fields such as political ecology, ecofeminism, and environmental justice, we highlight the importance of considering social, economic, and political forces in shaping planetary boundaries. We also recognise the potential challenges in reconciling different forms of accounting for ecological limits and the varieties of knowledge involved. We thus propose maintaining a pluralism of approaches in fostering open communication between the diverse senses and meanings of planetary boundaries and the ecological limits which they articulate. An accounting for planetary boundaries in which diverse ways of knowing, sensing, modelling, and narrating can coexist will encourage, we hope, a more holistic, open, and congenial understanding of our planetary situation.

Integrating Absolute Sustainability and Social Sustainability in the Digital Product Passport to Promote Industry 5.0

The establishment of the digital product passport is regarded to be a prominent tool to promote environmental and social sustainability, thus enabling the transition towards Industry 5.0. In this way, it represents a holistic tool for the decision-making process of several actors of a product’s value chain. However, its development is still ongoing and the absolute perspective of environmental sustainability and the social sustainability have been overlooked. The present work aims to fill these gaps and complement the literature currently available on the digital product passport with a threefold purpose. Firstly, by referring to social life cycle assessment methodologies, useful social indicators to include in the digital product passport are discussed and proposed. Secondly, the need for an absolute perspective of environmental sustainability that respects the natural limits of our planet is presented; based on the LCA methodology and the Planetary Boundaries framework, environmental attributes and environmental impact indicators with the corresponding threshold are proposed to be included in the passport and enable the so-called absolute environmental sustainability assessment of products. Finally, a framework based on a cyber-physical system for filling in the digital product passport throughout a product lifecycle is conceived. This work represents an example of how the hallmark technologies of Industry 4.0 can be used towards Industry 5.0.

Mapping 26years of climate change research in finance and accounting: a systematic scientometric analysis.

Climate change and climate finance continue to attract substantial research interest in several dimensions and categories through COVID-19 breakout and resulting disruptions were crucial. An in-depth scientometric analysis was undertaken to gain concise insights on evolution and publication trends of this multi-dimensional field. Corpus of 657 articles, extracted from Web of Science from 1995 to 2020, were used to identify networks of co-authorship, keywords, subject categories, institutions, and countries engaged in publishing on climate finance along with co-citation and cluster analysis. Networks and interactive visualizations created using CiteSpace revealed new research areas where climate finance may be beneficial along with potential directions of development for climate finance discipline. We identify carbon neutrality, accounting for sustainability, planetary boundaries framework, sustainable finance, managing climate risk for third pole, financial innovation and green finance, green swans, COVID pandemic and corporate law and governance in climate finance as emerging domains of climate finance research, seeking overwhelming research attention globally.

Evaluation of life cycle impacts of European electricity generation in relation to the Planetary Boundaries

The Planetary Boundaries framework was developed to control the anthropogenic pressure on the Earth system and delimit a safe operating space for humanity. Within the European Union (EU), the energy sector is the most emitting sector. Many studies have investigated life cycle impacts of electricity generation, but assessments of the life cycle impacts of electricity generation in relation to the planetary boundaries are currently limited. Here, we evaluate the life cycle impacts of electricity generation in the EU-28 and relate these impacts to the planetary boundaries. Moreover, we include an assessment of impacts on the planetary boundary biosphere integrity, which has often been omitted due to its complexity and inadequate basis for quantification. Three scenarios (Base, Green, and NZE) for the period 2020–2050 are considered, and two different sharing principles are applied for assigning a share of the safe operating space to the considered system. We found that neither of the three scenarios can be considered within the boundaries of the assigned safe operating space using either of the sharing principles. All three scenarios comply with an equal number of boundaries defined by SoSOS 1 in year 2050 (7 out of 15 boundaries), but in relation to the boundaries defined by SoSOS 2 the Green scenario performs best, complying with 13 out of 15 boundaries. The good performance of the Green scenario in 2050 is especially due to the large share of renewable energy sources (74 %) and nuclear (21 %), and because of the inclusion of BECCS, giving negative impacts on climate change. The results of the study indicate a need for a drastic change in the electricity mix of the EU-28 towards a larger share of renewable energies and emphasize the importance of considering all planetary boundaries to avoid burden shifting and to obtain absolute environmental sustainability for EU-28 electricity generation.

Methods for assessing social impacts of policies in relation to absolute boundaries

There is an urgent need for designing truly sustainable policies supporting transformational change, and consequently for integrated tools to avoid burden shifting from different dimensions of sustainability. The Safe and Just Operating Space concept holds potential to support sustainable design of policies and decision making, using both the planetary boundaries framework and key social dimensions on an absolute perspective. Yet there is a lack of associated quantitative social assessment approaches. A new methodology is developed to evaluate the social sustainability of a policy against absolute boundaries. First, the methodology quantifies the state of a system, in 15 social dimensions defined systematically. Second, it estimates the social impacts of a new policy and observes if it will contribute to reduce the social shortfall. A geothermal energy development policy in Uganda is taken as an illustrative example for proof-of-concept. In the metrics of the Social Foundation of the Just Operating Space, the implementation of the policy would substantially improve the social performance of Energy and Health. Conclusively, this methodology holds potential to help early-phase policy design that do not unintentionally shift burdens between social dimensions, albeit further work remains to test the methodology and apply it in absolute integrated assessments.

A Welfare Economic Approach to Planetary Boundaries

AbstractThe crises of both the climate and the biosphere are manifestations of the imbalance between human extractive, and polluting activities and the Earth’s regenerative capacity. Planetary boundaries define limits for biophysical systems and processes that regulate the stability and life support capacity of the Earth system, and thereby also define a safe operating space for humanity on Earth. Budgets associated to planetary boundaries can be understood as global commons: common pool resources that can be utilized within finite limits. Despite the analytical interpretation of planetary boundaries as global commons, the planetary boundaries framework is missing a thorough integration into economic theory. We aim to bridge the gap between welfare economic theory and planetary boundaries as derived in the natural sciences by presenting a unified theory of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis. Our pragmatic approach aims to overcome shortcomings of the practical applications of CEA and CBA to environmental problems of a planetary scale. To do so, we develop a model framework and explore decision paradigms that give guidance to setting limits on human activities. This conceptual framework is then applied to planetary boundaries. We conclude by using the realized insights to derive a research agenda that builds on the understanding of planetary boundaries as global commons.

Towards circular plastics within planetary boundaries

The rapid growth of plastics production exacerbated the triple planetary crisis of habitat loss, plastic pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Circular strategies have been proposed for plastics to achieve net-zero GHG emissions. However, the implications of such circular strategies on absolute sustainability have not been examined on a planetary scale. This study links a bottom-up model covering both the production and end-of-life treatment of 90% of global plastics to the planetary boundaries framework. Here we show that even a circular, climate-optimal plastics industry combining current recycling technologies with biomass utilization transgresses sustainability thresholds by up to four times. However, improving recycling technologies and recycling rates up to at least 75% in combination with biomass and CO2 utilization in plastics production can lead to a scenario in which plastics comply with their assigned safe operating space in 2030. Although being the key to sustainability and in improving the unquantified effect of novel entities on the biosphere, even enhanced recycling cannot cope with the growth in plastics demand predicted until 2050. Therefore, achieving absolute sustainability of plastics requires a fundamental change in our methods of both producing and using plastics.