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The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of current socio-economic systems and thrown into question the dominant global paradigm geared towards short-term financial efficiency. Although it has been acknowledged for several decades that this paradigm has detrimental impacts on the climate, the environment and global welfare, the pandemic has now offered a grim ‘rehearsal round’ for more serious crises that are to come with the accelerating climate emergency, loss of biodiversity and growing human inequalities. Along with worsening climate change, there are looming risks for mass migrations and armed conflicts as habitats capable of supporting human wellbeing become scarce, such as through the loss of potable water, an increasing lack of suitable land for agriculture, or the rise of unliveable temperatures. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily decreased some of the climate impacts, e.g. in the energy and transportation sectors, it has at the same time accelerated several global welfare problems. In this chapter, we claim that the way out of the crisis scenario is to replace the dominant efficiency paradigm with a resilience paradigm. Against the backbone of the key societal systems outlined in the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR 2019), we show how the pursuit of narrowly-defined efficiency hampers present and future sustainability, and chart some key actions on the path to transforming these systems towards resilience.

Climate change, urbanisation, chemical pollution and disruption of ecosystems, including biodiversity loss, affect our health and wellbeing. Research is crucial to be able to respond to the current and future challenges that are often complex and interconnected by nature. The HERA Agenda, summarised in this commentary, identifies six thematic research goals in the environment, climate and health fields. These include research to 1) reduce the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss on health and environment, 2) promote healthy lives in cities and communities, 3) eliminate harmful chemical exposures, 4) improve health impact assessment and implementation research, 5) develop infrastructures, technologies and human resources and 6) promote research on transformational change towards sustainability. Numerous specific recommendations for research topics, i.e., specific research goals, are presented under each major research goal. Several methods were used to define the priorities, including web-based surveys targeting researchers and stakeholder groups as well as a series of online and face-to-face workshops, involving hundreds of researchers and other stakeholders. The results call for an unprecedented effort to support a better understanding of the causes, interlinkages and impacts of environmental stressors on health and the environment. This will require breakdown of silos within policies, research, actors as well as in our institutional arrangements in order to enable more holistic approaches and solutions to emerge. The HERA project has developed a unique and exciting opportunity in Europe to consensuate priorities in research and strengthen research that has direct societal impact. The HERA project was funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825417.

Air pollution is now recognised by governments, international institutions and civil society as a major global public health risk factor. The health burden of air pollution is large: 509 000 premature deaths every year in Europe [1] and serious aggravations of heart and lung diseases that affect millions of patients, both children and adults. The European Environmental Agency estimated that in 2018 there were 417 000 premature deaths attributable to particulate matter with diameter, The potential role of air pollution in the worsening of health impacts of COVID-19, and the influence of the pandemic on air pollution levels in Europe is explored. This editorial outlines the major lessons learned to chart a healthy post-pandemic course. https://bit.ly/3hmbaya

Mitigation of climate change urges to reduce our meat consumption. This necessitates new eating practices and ways of thinking about food. In this paper we discuss how experimentative research can participate in making such changes. We introduce notions of pragmatic tinkering, speculative thinking and ethical discussion and evaluate their contribution to understanding of change in everyday practices. We investigate their prospects in relation to our experiments with sustainable school dining. In these experiments we introduced a free vegetarian choice to school meals and engaged pupils in their development. The results highlight the dynamic nature of change in everyday practices. The notion of tinkering highlights the small adjustments needed to reconcile the different goals in school dining. Our results stress that the practical adjustments easily uphold the conventional practices. Speculative thinking is needed in challenging them. In our experiments, the engagement of pupils opened places for hesitation, and eventually also to new ways of thinking about school food. The pupils also challenged our experiments. They reminded how eating is entangled to our shared cultural meanings on food, but also to our identity and understandings of gender. In future, experimentative research should build settings, which allow them becoming more multiple as well.

Agenda 2030 and sustainable development goals (SDG) are key formulations of sustainability policies, consisting of 17 general-level goals and 169 more detailed targets. The target setting is based on tedious international policy negotiations and compromises addressing myriad of different and sometimes incompatible interests. Identification of key trade-offs and synergies between the targets can help the efficient implementation of SDGs by improving the opportunities to focus policy attention and actions on the most relevant issues. This article focuses on trade-offs and synergies of nationally relevant targets in the context of an industrialised and affluent nation state. Results from a cross-matrix examination of targets in Finland show that most of the selected targets are characterised by synergistic interactions with other nationally relevant targets. However, policies aimed at advancing economic growth and the use of renewable energy risk a number of serious trade-offs. Methodological advances are required to make the assessment of interactions more transparent and reliable, manageable within the limited resources and capable of producing results relevant to decision-making. A recommendation for the use of cross-matrix examination as a tool of collaborative ex ante sustainability assessment is put forward, also acknowledging the risk of "paralysis by analysis" related to the wide-ranging SDG framework.

On aika siirtyä yksittäisten ympäristöongelmien ratkaisemisesta kokonaisvaltaiseen kestävyysmurrokseen. Kestävyysmurroksella tarkoitetaan yhteiskuntamme kaikkien järjestelmien ripeää sovittamista ympäristön kantokyvyn rajoihin. Vain näin pystymme torjumaan ilmastonmuutosta ja luontokatoa ja takaamaan hyvän tulevaisuuden tuleville sukupolville. Kestävyysmurroksen aikaansaamiseen tarvitaan kaikki mukaan. Muutoksen tulee perustua tutkittuun tietoon, ja se tulee toteuttaa reilusti.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of current socio-economic systems and thrown into question the dominant global paradigm geared towards short-term financial efficiency. Although it has been acknowledged for several decades that this paradigm has detrimental impacts on the climate, the environment and global welfare, the pandemic has now offered a grim ‘rehearsal round’ for more serious crises that are to come with the accelerating climate emergency, loss of biodiversity and growing human inequalities. Along with worsening climate change, there are looming risks for mass migrations and armed conflicts as habitats capable of supporting human wellbeing become scarce, such as through the loss of potable water, an increasing lack of suitable land for agriculture, or the rise of unliveable temperatures. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily decreased some of the climate impacts, e.g. in the energy and transportation sectors, it has at the same time accelerated several global welfare problems. In this chapter, we claim that the way out of the crisis scenario is to replace the dominant efficiency paradigm with a resilience paradigm. Against the backbone of the key societal systems outlined in the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR 2019), we show how the pursuit of narrowly-defined efficiency hampers present and future sustainability, and chart some key actions on the path to transforming these systems towards resilience. peerReviewed

It is time to move beyond solving environmental problems one by one, to systemic sustainability transformations. Sustainability transformations are about rapidly fitting societal systems to match the carrying capacity of ecosystems. This is paramount for combating climate change and biodiversity loss and for securing a good future for generations to come. Making sustainability transformation happen needs everyone to join these efforts. The change should be based on research and it should be carried through in a just manner.

Den globala rapporten om hållbar utveckling visar att vi gör framsteg i fråga om de globala målen för hållbar utveckling enligt Agenda 2030, men att det går alldeles för långsamt. Ojämlikheten ökar, klimatförändringarna förvärras, den biologiska mångfalden minskar och avfallsmängderna fortsätter att öka. Bakom dessa fenomen finns många faktorer som påverkar varandra. Men det går att vända riktningen, förutsatt att de ömsesidiga beroendeförhållandena identifieras och en övergripande förändring i en hållbar riktning åstadkoms.

Kansainvälisten tiedepaneelien perustaminen osoittaa, että päätöksentekijät tiedostavat tieteen mahdollisuudet ja voiman. Tuore YK:n jäsenmaiden tilaama riippumaton tiederaportti maailman kestävän kehityksen tilasta (GSDR2019) tekee kuitenkin selväksi, että nykyisessä muodossaan tutkimus ei kykene tukemaan sitä murrosta, jota suurten ympäristöhaasteiden edessä nyt tarvitaan. Eikä ilmastonmuutosta selätetä ilman laajempaa siirtymää turvalliseen ja oikeudenmukaiseen maailmaan, eli kestävään kehitykseen.

Increased attention to, and careful planning of the integration of migrants into Nordic societies is ever more important. Nature based integration is a new solution to respond to this need. This report presents the results of a Nordic survey and workshop and illustrates current practices of nature based integration by case study descriptions from Denmark, Sweden Norway and Finland. Across Nordic countries several practical projects and initiatives have been launched to promote the benefits of nature in integration and there is also growing academic interest in the topic. Nordic countries have the potential of becoming real forerunners in nature based integration even at the global scale.