Publications

Chambers, J., Wyborn, C., Klenk, N., Ryan, M., Serban, A., Bennett, N., Brennan, R., Charli-Joseph, L., Fernández-Giménez, M., Galvin, K., Goldstein, B., Haller, T., Hill, R., Munera, C., Nel, J., Österblom, H., Reid, R., Riechers, M., Spierenburg, M., Tengö, M., Bennett, E., Brandeis, A., Chatterton, P., Cockburn, J., Cvitanovic, C., Dumrongrojwatthana, P., Paz Durán, A., Gerber, J., Green, J., Gruby, R., Guerrero, A., Horcea-Milcu, A., Montana, J., Steyaert, P., Zaehringer, J., Bednarek, A., Curran, K., Fada, S., Hutton, J., Leimona, B., Pickering, T., Rondeau, R. 2022. Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations. Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations. Global Environmental Change. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102422

Co-production, the collaborative weaving of research and practice by diverse societal actors, is argued to play an important role in sustainability transformations. Yet, there is still poor understanding of how to navigate the tensions that emerge in these processes. Through analyzing 32 initiatives worldwide that co-produced knowledge and action to foster sustainable social-ecological relations, we conceptualize ‘co-productiv...

Enqvist, J. and van Oyen, W. Sustainable water tariffs and inequality in post‑drought Cape Town: exploring perceptions of fairness. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01217-9

Fair allocation of diminishing natural resources is increasingly central to sustainability. This includes the allocation of costs related to providing access, such as dams, pipes and pumps delivering clean water. Water tariffs are often designed to both recover these costs, meet social needs of water services to the poor, and incentivise conservation in dry times. However, strained public finances, prolonged droughts and econo...

Kuiper, J. J., van Wijk, D., Mooij, W. M., Remme, R. P., Peterson, G. D., Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S., Mooij, C. J., Leltz, G. M., Pereira, L. M. 2022. Exploring desirable nature futures for Nationaal Park Hollandse Duinen. Ecosystems and People. 10.1080/26395916.2022.2065360

Achieving global sustainability goals requires most people and societies to fundamentally revisit their relationship with nature. New approaches are called for to guide change processes towards sustainable futures that embrace the plurality of people’s desired relationships with nature. This paper presents a novel approach to exploring desirable futures for nature and people that was developed through an application in Nationa...

Pereira, L., Kushitor, S.B., Cramer, C. et al. 2022. Leveraging the potential of wild food for healthy, sustainable, and equitable local food systems: learning from a transformation lab in the Western Cape region. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01182-3

Food insecurity and diet-related diseases do not only have detrimental effects to human health, but are also underpinned by food systems that are environmentally unsustainable and culturally disconnected. Ensuring access to a healthy, affordable, and sustainable diet is one of the greatest challenges facing many low- and middle-income countries such as South Africa. These challenges in accessing a diverse diet often persist de...

Coste, M., Pereira, L., Charman, A., Petersen, L., Hawkes, C. 2022. ‘Hampers’ as an effective strategy to shift towards sustainable diets in South African low-income communities. Development Southern Africa. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2022.2028605

Transitioning towards sustainable diets is imperative to avoid the worst effects of climate change, environmental degradation, and malnutrition. In South Africa, households most vulnerable to food insecurity employ various strategies to access food. These include purchasing hampers; a combination of staple foods sold in bulk at a discounted price, which are cake wheat flour, super maize meal, white sugar, cooking oil, and whit...

Wassénius, E., Crona, B. 2022. Adapting risk assessments for a complex future. One Earth. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.12.004

Human activities have progressively eroded the biosphere basis for our societies and introduced various risks. To navigate these risks, or potential undesirable outcomes of the future, we need tools and an understanding of how to assess risk in a complex world. Risk assessments are a powerful tool to address sustainability challenges. However, two issues currently hamper their ability to deal with sustainability risks: the lim...

Resare Sahlin, K., Trewern, J. 2022. A systematic review of the definitions and interpretations in scientific literature of ‘less but better’ meat in high-income settings. Nature Food. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00536-5

‘Less but better’ is a pragmatic approach to tackling the sustainability challenges of meat consumption and production. Definitions of ‘less’ and ‘better’ lack clarity. Here we explore interpretations of these concepts, finding increasing use of ‘less but better’ in the literature from Western, high-income settings. Despite discrepancies among interpretations of ‘less’ meat, existing quantifications indicate that significant r...

Resare Sahlin, K., Carolus, J., von Greyerz, K., Ekqvist, I., Röös, E. 2022. Delivering “less but better” meat in practice—a case study of a farm in agroecological transition. Agronomy for Sustainable Development. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13593-021-00737-5

Eating “less but better” meat can be a strategy to guide meat consumption in Western or high-income countries towards sustainability, but what “better” means depends on the perspective. Multiple studies and reports suggest that agroecological farming systems could contribute to a broad range of sustainability benefits, but few studies have examined the implications for people and nature following trade-offs between sustainabil...

Singh, C., van der Ent, R., Wang‐Erlandsson, L., Fetzer, I. 2022. Hydroclimatic adaptation critical to the resilience of tropical forests. Global Change Biology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16115

Forest and savanna ecosystems naturally exist as alternative stable states. The maximum capacity of these ecosystems to absorb perturbations without transitioning to the other alternative stable state is referred to as ‘resilience’. Previous studies have determined the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems to hydroclimatic changes predominantly based on space-for-time substitution. This substitution assumes that the contemporar...

Singh, C., Karan, S., Sardar, P., Samadder, S. 2022. Remote sensing-based biomass estimation of dry deciduous tropical forest using machine learning and ensemble analysis. Journal of Environmental Management. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114639

Forests play a vital role in maintaining the global carbon balance. However, globally, forest ecosystems are increasingly threatened by climate change and deforestation in recent years. Monitoring forests, specifically forest biomass is essential for tracking changes in carbon stocks and the global carbon cycle. However, developing countries lack the capacity to actively monitor forest carbon stocks, which ultimately adds unce...