Actions and actors driving transformative change for global sustainability
Reyes-García, Victoria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Krug, Rainer M. (University of Zürich. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies)
Agrawal, Arun (University of Michigan)
Benessaiah, Karina (University of Guelph. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics)
Bonilla-Moheno, Martha (Instituto de Ecología. Red Ambiente y Sustentabilidad (Mexico))
Claudet, Joachim (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Université de Perpignan Via Domitia)
Forsyth, Tim (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro (Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural (Argentina))
Gemmill-Herren, Barbara (World Agroforestry Centre (Kenya))
Guibal, Camille (Université de Montpellier)
Goldstein, Bruce Evan (University of Colorado Boulder. Institute of Behavioral Science)
Gosnell, Hannah (Oregon State University. College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences)
Guo, Xiaona (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
Huntjens, Patrick (InHolland University of Applied Sciences)
Ifejika Speranza, Chinwe (University of Bern. Institute of Geography)
Leventon, Julia (Czech Academy of Sciences. Global Change Research Institute)
Santos de Lima, Letícia (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Magris, Rafael A. (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation)
Miwa, Koji (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (Japan))
Molina, José Luis (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Antropologia Social i Cultural)
O'brien, Karen (University of Oslo. Department of Sociology and Human Geography)
Pandit, Ram (The University of Western Australia. Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy)
Pereira, Laura M. (University of the Witwatersrand. Global Change Institute (South Africa))
Raab, Kristina (Global Fishing Watch (US))
Scheidel, Arnim (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Tittonell, Pablo (Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias de Bariloche)
Ugarte Lucas, Paula (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Villasante, Sebastián (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Departamento de Economía Aplicada)
Zinngrebe, Yves (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research)

Data:	2026
Resum:	The urgent need for transformative change to address the intertwined crises of climate change and biodiversity loss is widely recognized. Here, drawing on work originally conducted within the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment and using a bibliometric analysis of more than 4 million scholarly documents, we examine the actions and actors driving transformative change for global sustainability. The literature disproportionately focuses on a limited set of available actions and actors, neglecting others and overlooking their potential interactions. Notably, the actions 'changing social norms' and 'technological change' and the communication and knowledge and private sectors are frequently discussed, while actions referring to transforming the economic and governance systems and the civil society and the public sector are understudied. Moreover, actions and actors do not tend to appear together in consistent or systematic ways; instead, most action-actor combinations appear at rates similar to random chance, with only a few notable exceptions. The uneven distribution of scholarly attention may hinder the coordination and cross-sectoral coalitions required for effective transformative change. Our findings call for a more inclusive approach to research on actors and actions needed for transformative change towards a just and sustainable world, and for a greater focus on synergies between actions and actors potentially driving transformative change.
Ajuts:	European Commission 771056 European Commission 101002784 Agencia Estatal de Investigación RYC2020-029088-I Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEX2019-000940-M
Nota:	Altres ajuts: Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2024-001506-M
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Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Matèria:	SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy ; SDG 13 - Climate Action
Publicat a:	Nature sustainability, Vol. 9, Num. 4 (April 2026) , p. 3595-603, ISSN 2398-9629

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-026-01783-1

Disponible a partir de: 2026-10-31 Postprint 23 p, 1.9 MB

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