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This preliminary survey begins to probe a few purposes and practices of “Earth System Science” to rethink the ways in which Nature is “taken into account” by this new power/knowledge formation. The workings of “environmentality,” or green governmentality (Luke, 1999c), and the dispositions of environmental accountancy regimes depend increasingly on the development and deployment of such reconceptualized interdisciplinary sciences (Briden & Downing, 2002). These practices have gained much more cohesion as a technoscience network since 2001 Amsterdam Conference on Global Climate Change Open Science. Due to its brevity, this study is neither an exhaustive history nor an extensive sociology of either Earth System Science or the new post-2001 Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP), which acquired new legitimacy during and after this professional-technical congress. Instead this critique reexamines these disciplinary developments to explore the curious condition of their rapid assembly and gradual acceptance as credible technoscience formations. This reevaluation allows one, at the same time, to speculate about the emergent interests hoping to gain hold over such power/knowledge programs for managing security, territory, and population on a planetary scale (Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991; Foucault, 1991c, pp. 87–104).

This study aims to assess progress toward achieving international (United Nations’) goals and targets for attaining sustainable development and discuss the risks of worldwide failure.

The authors highlight the relationship between global goals/targets and governance, relate this to the concept of sustainable development, outline and compare Millennium Development Goals and their successors, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and lastly view SDG implementation from two major spaces i.e. the governance and science space, respectively.

Governance and culture as new components of sustainable development may be sine qua non for humanity’s transformative action toward global and just sustainable development. Through fostering informed decision and policymaking, modern science, as sketched in this contribution, should provide the framework for realizing Agenda 2030. Earth System Science and its innovative notions such as the Anthropocene, planetary boundaries, tipping points and tipping elements will be key in the process of “designing” blank a sustainable future of and for Homo sapiens.

This essay proposes developing holistic approaches to cooperate at all levels in urgent efforts to meet goals projected for 2030 and 2050. The complexity and functioning of the governance space, comprising a system of governance systems, is illustrated not only in the diversity of the institutional landscape but in particular through the blurring of all scales – local to global.

What follows is a small sampling of activities that are underway. All of them are working toward contributing to the understanding of the Earth system.

This paper questions the common perception within heritage science that the environment is seen primarily as a risk factor that can change or impact heritage. The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualise the relationship between heritage and the environment within an Earth System Science framework, enabling a more sustainable approach for understanding and conserving heritage sites to be implemented.

To explore the relationship between heritage and the environment, this paper considers how perceptions of the environment within heritage science have been shaped in response to the conservation challenges facing movable heritage. Furthermore, as heritage encompasses a wide array of immovable buildings and sites whose relationships with the environment are complex and nuanced, this paper premises that the environment cannot be considered separately from heritage as it is intrinsically related by: providing components of heritage; modifying heritage; being modified by heritage; adding to heritage value; and acting as a co-creator of heritage.

This paper proposes that heritage science should learn from, and work within, the well-established Earth System Science framework. This enables interactions and feedbacks between heritage and components of the environment to be explored across a range of scales.

This systems-based approach allows heritage science to consider the environment more holistically and sustainably within its research and practice and better equips it to conserve movable and immovable heritage in the Anthropocene.

This paper provides a novel approach for viewing the relationship between heritage and the environment by using a well-established framework from other highly interdisciplinary fields.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct performance evaluation of eight main scientific data sharing platforms in China and find existing problems, thus providing reference for maximizing the value of scientific data and enhancing scientific research efficiency.

First, the authors built an evaluation indicator system for the performance of scientific data sharing platforms. Next, the analytic hierarchy process was employed to set indicator weights. Then, the authors use experts grading method to give scored for each indicator and calculated the scoring results of the scientific data sharing platform performance evaluation. Finally, an analysis of the results was conducted.

The performance evaluation of eight platforms is arranged by descending order by the value of F: the Data Sharing Infrastructure of Earth System Science (76.962), the Basic Science Data Sharing Center (76.595), the National Scientific Data Sharing Platform for Population and Health (71.577), the China Earthquake Data Center (66.296), the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System (65.159), the National Agricultural Scientific Data Sharing Center (55.068), the Chinese Forestry Science Data Center (56.894) and the National Scientific Data Sharing & Service Network on Material Environmental Corrosion (Aging) (52.528). And some existing shortcomings such as the relevant policies and regulation, standards of data description and organization, data availability and the services should be improved.

This paper is mainly discussing about the performance evaluation system covering operation management, data resource, platform function, service efficiency and influence of eight scientific data sharing centers and made comparative analysis. It reflected the reality development of scientific data sharing in China.

This paper aims to suggest the structure of a platform for education and capacity building for Future Earth, which is an intensive program open to the eight stakeholders and which utilizes existing research programs/facilities associated with Future Earth. An intention of this paper is to facilitate a policy brief for projects associated with Future Earth.

This paper reviewed backgrounds and necessary items for education and capacity buildings in Future Earth projects by implementing three main priorities in Future Earth and current surrounding environments.

This paper then suggested a possible structure, competencies, contents and human resources for education and capacity building and education for Future Earth.

The suggestions can be implemented in capacity building and education programs associated with Future Earth.

At the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit, the Club of Rome in collaboration with a network of global contributors issued a statement calling for nations to declare a planetary emergency. The statement calls for urgent action to prevent a global crisis due to the impact of human activity on the stability of the Earth’s life-support systems. Implications of the planetary emergency pose intriguing challenges for how managers address paradoxical sustainability challenges across spatial and temporal scales. In this chapter, the authors have two aims. First, the authors show that the planetary emergency is inherently paradoxical. To do this, the authors build an embedded view of the planetary emergency and argue that it is paradoxical due to key dynamics that emerge across organizational, economic, social, and environmental systems over time. Second, the authors advance paradox theory by exploring the paradoxical nature of the planetary emergency and propose a three-sequence framework for collective action including: (1) building a view of the planetary emergency across spatial and temporal scales, (2) collectively making sense of the planetary emergency, and (3) levering a paradoxical view of the planetary emergency to ensure effective action.

This chapter examines relationships between gender equity and environmental concerns as expressed through two different views of ecofeminism, those of a natural scientist and a social scientist. Personal experiences are recorded and analyzed to show similarities and differences in life and career trajectories, in part influenced by ecofeminist thought. In tracing this impact, we observed that much of the current philosophical and social science framework is less applicable to a natural science perspective. Natural systems repeat and nest at varieties of scales; thus the connectivity within any system parallels, reflects, mirrors the connectivity of other systems. These parallel systems can be nested in fractal-like natural worlds, where connections within are reflected between, and the patterns of the system are replicated in each. Thus, when we look across the range of interconnected systems, the axes are not intersecting at all, but simply reflective parallels. Such may be the case with the axes of oppression emphasized by many ecofeminists. We thus propose an extension to ecofeminist thinking – the notion of system reflectivity that encompasses, but is broader than, the idea of simultaneously operating axes of oppression.

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the nature and relevance of debates around the existence of, and ramifications arising from, the Anthropocene for accounting scholarship.

The paper’s aim is achieved through an in-depth analysis of the Anthropocene, paying attention to cross-disciplinary contributions, interpretations and contestations. Possible points of connection between the Anthropocene and accounting scholarship are then proposed and illuminated through a case study drawn from the seafood sector.

This paper develops findings in two areas. First, possible pathways for further development of how accounting scholarship might evolve by the provocation that thinking about the Anthropocene is outlined. Second, and through engagement with the case study, the authors highlight that the concept of stewardship may re-emerge in discussions about accountability in the Anthropocene.

The paper argues that accounting scholarship focused on social, environmental and sustainability concerns may be further developed by engagement with Anthropocene debates.

While accounting practice might have to change to deal with Anthropocene induced effects, this paper focuses on implications for accounting scholarship.

Human well-being is likely to be impacted if environmental impacts accelerate. In addition, an Anthropocene framing alters the understanding of nature–human interactions and how this affects accounting thought.

This is the first paper in accounting to seek to establish connections between accounting, accountability and the Anthropocene.

Despite increasing efforts to incorporate sustainability in curricula and practices of institutions of higher education, effective implementation remains challenging. The purpose of this study is to present an approach to incorporate sustainability into a practice-oriented research skills course, which was implemented at a small island state university in the Caribbean.

First-year university students followed a four-week course module, starting with the introduction of the sustainable development goals, and culminating in a symposium in which the students present the findings of their research projects to the campus community. Pre-course module and post-course module surveys measured the students’ knowledge and perceptions regarding sustainability. These survey results were also compared with the result of a similar survey held for the university’s employees.

The survey results suggested that following the course module increased students’ knowledge about sustainable development, as well as their support for the university campus and its community putting more emphasis on teaching, practicing and encouraging sustainability. Interestingly, university employees scored significantly higher on the latter component than students, suggesting that in this case a lack of interest of the staff is not a barrier toward a sustainable campus.

The presented course module offers a novel and low-cost approach to introducing sustainability into a broad range of academic curricula, specifically tailored to the needs of institutes of higher education in small island states. The survey results suggest that this type of education may not only ensure reaching academic goals but also increase students’ interest in sustainable development within their local environment.