A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability, 88 (95).https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0021-4 © 2018, Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper published in Nature Sustainability. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.eprints@whiterose.ac.uk https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. TakedownIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Humanity faces the challenge of how to achieve a high quality of life for over seven billion people without destabilising critical planetary processes. Using indicators designed to measure a "safe and just" development space, we quantify the resource use associated with meeting basic human needs, and compare this to downscaled planetary boundaries for close to 150 nations. We find no country meets basic needs for its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. Physical needs such as nutrition, sanitation, access to electricity, and the elimination of extreme poverty could likely be met for all people without transgressing planetary boundaries. However, the universal achievement of more qualitative goals (e.g. high life satisfaction) would require a level of resource use that is 2-6 times the sustainable level, based on current relationships. Strategies to improve physical and social provisioning systems, with a focus on sufficiency and equity, have the potential to move nations towards sustainability, but the challenge remains substantial. A good life for all within planetary boundariesThis article addresses a key question in sustainability science: What level of biophysical resource use is associated with meeting people's basic needs, and can this level of resource use be extended to all people without exceeding critical planetary boundaries? To answer this question, we analyse the relationships between seven indicators of national environmental pressure (relative to biophysical boundaries) and eleven indicators of social outcomes (relative to sufficiency thresholds) for close to 150 countries. Our study represents the first attempt to measure national performance using a "safe and just space" framework 1,2 for a large number of countries, and provides important findings on the relationships between resource use and human well-being. A Safe and Just SpaceThere have been two recent, complementary advances in defining biophysical processes, pressures, and boundaries at the planetary scale. The first is th...

The unprecedented scale of food waste in global food supply chains is attracting increasing attention due to its environmental, social and economic impacts. From a climate change perspective, the food sector is thought to be the cause of 22 per cent of the global warming potential in the EU. Drawing on interviews with food waste specialists, this study construes the boundaries between food surplus and food waste, avoidable and unavoidable food waste, and between waste prevention and waste management. This study suggests that the first step towards a more sustainable resolution of the growing food waste issue is to adopt a sustainable production and consumption approach and tackle food surplus and waste throughout the global food supply chain. The authors examine the factors that give rise to food waste throughout the global food supply chain, and propose a framework to identify and prioritize the most appropriate options for the prevention and management of food waste.The proposed framework interprets and applies the waste hierarchy in the context of food waste. It considers the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social), offering a more holistic approach in addressing the food waste issue. Additionally, it considers the materiality and temporality of food. The food waste hierarchy posits that prevention, through minimization of food surplus and avoidable food waste, is the most attractive option. The second most attractive option involves the distribution of food surplus to groups affected by food poverty, followed by the option of converting food waste to animal feed. Although the proposed food waste hierarchy requires a fundamental re-think of the current practices and systems in place, it has the potential to deliver substantial environmental, social and economic benefits.

For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. We summarise the evidence and present possible solution approaches. Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.R ecent scientists' warnings confirm alarming trends of environmental degradation from human activity, leading to profound changes in essential life-sustaining functions of planet Earth 1-3 . The warnings surmise that humanity has failed to find lasting solutions to these changes that pose existential threats to natural systems, economies and societies and call for action by governments and individuals.The warnings aptly describe the problems, identify population, economic growth and affluence as drivers of unsustainable trends and acknowledge that humanity needs to reassess the role of growth-oriented economies and the pursuit of affluence 1,2 . However, they fall short of clearly identifying the underlying forces of overconsumption and of spelling out the measures that are needed to tackle the overwhelming power of consumption and the economic growth paradigm 4 . This perspective synthesises existing knowledge and recommendations from the scientific community. We provide evidence from the literature that consumption of affluent households worldwide is by far the strongest determinant and the strongest accelerator of increases of global environmental and social impacts. We describe the systemic drivers of affluent overconsumption and synthesise the literature that provides possible solutions by reforming or changing economic systems. These solution approaches range from reformist to radical ideas, including degrowth, eco-socialism and eco-anarchism. Based on these insights, we distil recommendations for further research in the final section. Affluence as a driver of environmental and social impactsThe link between consumption and impacts. There exists a large body of literature in which the relationship between environmental, resource and social impacts on one hand, and possible explanatory variables on the other, is investigated. We review and summarise those studies that holistically assess the impact of human activities, in the sense that impacts are not restricted to

No abstract

No abstract