Providing a growing human population with food, fibre and fuel in a sustainable and fair way is one of the grand challenges facing humanity. Although the GPE has offered huge benefits by increasing the production of certain desired species99, the intensification and simplification of production ecosystems have been criticized from ecological2,6,11, social17,39 and social-ecological perspectives100. Consequently, we argue that it should be substantially and deliberately transformed towards a sustainable trajectory, on which: (1) the demands for biomass are met in a fair and just way, without undermining the functioning of the biosphere, (2) connectivity is capitalized on to improve sustainability, (3) biological and social diversity is enhanced to ensure building blocks for adaptability and transformation in the face of change, and (4) feedback loops are strengthened (recoupled) to avoid masking effects and coercion of resilience.

Determining the boundary conditions characterizing a sustainable GPE is a challenging task that will involve a mix of approaches. The planetary boundaries framework101 can be used to define global and regional limits in biophysical processes—the ‘safe operating environmental space’—that must not be transgressed if humanity is to stay away from systemic and potentially irreversible shifts in the biosphere. For example, this framework was recently applied to quantitatively estimate how to keep the global food system within environmental limits102. Combined with the aspirational social goals framework (‘safe and just space for humanity’)103, this can provide a starting point for discussions around levels of acceptable risk and trade-offs between productivity, sustainability and equity104.

Steering the GPE towards a sustainable trajectory will also require a combination of more specific strategies and solutions, as well as careful consideration of their feasibility and the trade-offs involved. Although the polarized debate between the integration (land sharing) and separation (land sparing) of conservation and production fits into discussions around food production and land scarcity, it is ill-suited to address issues of scale (for example, temporal variation in agricultural land use patterns and total area for conservation) or effects of globalization (for example, displacement activities)105. The land-sparing versus land-sharing debate is too often framed as a binary choice, ignoring possible middle ground and cross-fertilization. Within this context, sustainable intensification has gained momentum in discussions around global sustainability and has become a policy goal for many institutions to deliver on global social and environmental commitments (for example, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement). However, it has also been criticized for having a narrow focus on efficiency gains and technological interventions106. More systemic forms of sustainable intensification have therefore begun to occur at large scales and across a wide range of agroecosystems, to redesign the composition and structure of production ecosystems and harness a broad range of ecological processes such as predation, parasitism, herbivory, nitrogen fixation and pollination107. Further efforts towards a sustainable GPE include approaches to ensure more stable food supplies by increasing national crop diversity108, broad-scale shifts in diets and strategies to reduce loss and waste of biomass102, and the integration of local realities and contexts, such as procedural justice and equitable distribution of benefits from multi-functional land and seascapes17,109.

Although these initiatives are contributing to sustainability in important ways, they are being challenged by an expanding GPE in which systemic, sectoral and jurisdictional boundaries are increasingly blurred. Acting on this new reality entails creating conditions that foster innovation, incentivize transformation and encourage new partnerships across different sectors and actor groups110. For this reason, we propose three entry points towards a more sustainable GPE that have great transformative potential but are still in their infancy.

Redirecting finance for sustainability

Financial investments—public or private—are increasingly recognized as key leverage points for achieving sustainability111,112,113. Government subsidies channel large amounts of public capital into the different sectors of the GPE, ultimately influencing practices and species production on the ground. Whereas subsidies have mostly been associated with unsustainable practices, such as fuelling over-capacity in the fishing industry114, they could also provide powerful incentives for improved sustainability if linked to the right criteria. In the European Union’s reformed Common Agricultural Policy, for example, a direct payment scheme is used to incentivize sustainable resource management, in which farmers who comply with greening measures (that is, addressing biodiversity loss, avoiding crop monoculture and securing carbon sequestration) benefit financially from payments (but see ref. 115). Another recent government-led action is the alliance of Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), formed during the One Planet Summit in 2017 to explore the role of and possibilities for central banks to use their mandate to incentivize economies to transition to more sustainable pathways116.

Private financial actors such as asset managers and commercial banks channel the bulk of capital behind the expansion of the GPE by investing in or lending to companies in different production sectors. Although direct causality between financial flows and environmental change is often opaque112,117, such investments represent a potential source of influence over corporate practices. Shareholders of publicly listed companies have the ability to affect a firm’s sustainability performance by exercising their voting rights at shareholder meetings (shareholder activism). They can engage directly with the corporate leadership on governance and policy, or indirectly through chains of ownership and threats of divestment. For example, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund—Norway’s Government Pension Fund—has divested from 32 companies involved in unsustainable palm oil production since deforestation became an ethical criterion in 2012 (https://www.nbim.no). The insurance sector could also provide important leverage towards more sustainable practices—for instance, by refusing to insure fishing vessels associated with illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing118. Similarly, loan covenants (that is, the specific conditions associated with credit lending) provide a powerful tool for banks to influence the behaviour of borrowing companies operating in the GPE by denying access to clients that do not comply with sustainability standards and providing incentives so that better sustainability performance results in reduced interest rates113. In this context, pressure from governments and finance ministries will be essential to promote new norms and regulations that can align banks, financial markets and other investors with sustainability goals113.

Radical transparency and traceability

Consumers can be influential in promoting sustainability by aligning their purchasing with sustainable thinking. They are also important as citizens whose perceptions and opinions drive the political will to address sustainability issues. Education and provision of information—such as certification, labelling schemes and public campaigns—are therefore central instruments for consumers to make informed decisions54. However, if as a society we do not know where, how, in what quantity and by whom a given commodity is produced, it is arguably difficult to tackle sustainability challenges119.

Whereas transparency is necessary to assess the environmental sustainability of corporate and financial activities, traceability represents a key mechanism by which corporations can ensure that their supply chains are devoid of unacceptable behaviour, ranging from illegal sourcing and forced labour to poor sanitation and mislabelling120,121,122. Many of the operations of the corporate and financial world are still plagued by opaqueness119,123, including secrecy around financial transactions and corporate loans117, as well as poor disclosure on implementation of corporate policy and internal allocation of capital (see https://www.ifrs.org/).

Radical transparency and traceability require the disclosure of production volumes and practices. It also demands that corporate and governmental policies are put in place to ensure that social and environmental criteria are met in all supply chain segments, as well as mechanisms to monitor how such regulations are implemented and enforced124,125. To date, improved corporate disclosure has largely been driven by voluntary action125 under the scrutiny of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Whereas the Global Reporting Initiative (https://www.globalreporting.org) is a prominent example of widely adopted sustainability reporting standards, the more recent World Benchmarking Alliance (https://www.worldbenchmarkingalliance.org/) encourages companies to disclose information that allows evaluation of their operations in relation to industry benchmarks. Even though mandatory reporting is increasing globally, limited regulation contributes to poor transparency and sustainability-related corporate reporting remains voluntary in many jurisdictions (see https://www.carrotsandsticks.net). More stringent and clearly articulated criteria for disclosure therefore represent an important step towards more transparent corporate practices.

Emerging digital technologies that deliver decentralized systems, such as blockchain126,127, could resolve some of these issues and improve traceability in the GPE. However, these technologies are energy-intensive and interoperability remains a hurdle because seamless communication between digital platforms and agreed-on data for transmission are largely unrealized128. Thus, barriers to chain-wide traceability are not just technological but also organizational, and will require changes in legislation and the institutions that govern trade to stimulate cooperation throughout supply chains124.

Keystone actors as global agents of change

A key facet of sustainability science is that the identification of challenges and their solutions requires collaboration between researchers and actors from outside academia129. Generally, these actors encompass local communities, indigenous groups, management agencies, NGOs and government actors. More recently, however, increasing attention has been directed towards large transnational corporations and their role as a threat to, or as an opportunity for, sustainable transformation37,130,131.

Private governance raises concerns associated with accountability, fair representation and global equity36. Nevertheless, transnational corporations have become a central feature of the GPE (that is, keystone actors), with a capacity to influence practices across supply chains and geographical locations35, and thus have the potential to become powerful agents of change for improved sustainability37. An increasing number of private sector initiatives is emerging with the intention to mobilize companies to take tangible actions, make investments and form partnerships to deliver on sustainability37.

Scientists have an important role to play in this context, acting as independent knowledge brokers to ensure that the agendas of keystone actors are based on scientific evidence and align with long-term sustainability goals. Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) provides an unconventional example of a co-production initiative in which scientists directly engaged with the world’s largest seafood companies to stimulate transformative change towards improved ocean stewardship132. Drawing on an empirical identification of the largest companies involved in aquaculture and wild-capture fisheries35 this global science–business initiative emerged in 2016 with a number of task forces led by member companies in collaboration with and supported by scientists (https://www.keystonedialogues.earth). While the long-term outcome remains to be evaluated, the 10 companies engaged in SeaBOS can influence the strategic direction of more than 600 subsidiaries with operations in at least 90 different countries132.

Although this presents a promising approach to be replicated in other sectors in the GPE, such engagements do not come without risk. For scientists, they may cause reputational damage and loss of credibility if companies use the initiative for greenwashing purposes or if they fall short on their promises. For the private sector, they may lead to competitive disadvantage and loss of profit in the short term if other companies do not participate. Nevertheless, with renewable biomass and global sustainability at stake, there are strong incentives for novel science–business partnerships to emerge in combination with effective public policies and improved governmental regulations37.