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In early 2020, Indonesia implemented the biodiesel 30 (B30) program as an initiative to reduce Indonesia’s dependency on fossil fuels and to protect Indonesia’s palm oil market. However, palm oil has received international criticism due to its association with harmful environmental externalities. This paper analysed whether an investment in palm oil-based biofuel (POBB) provides Indonesia with the ability to achieve its environmental and financial goals. In this research, we performed a meta-analysis on biofuel energy return on investment (EROI) by examining 44 biofuel projects using ten types of biofuel feedstocks from 13 countries between 1995 and 2016. Results showed an average EROI of 3.92 and 3.22 for POBB and other biomass-based biofuels (OBBB), respectively. This shows that if only energy inputs and outputs are considered, biofuels provide a positive energy return. However, biofuels, including those from palm oil, produce externalities especially during land preparation and land restoration. We also compared these EROI biofuel results with other renewable energy sources and further analysed the implications for renewable energies to meet society’s energy demands in the future. Results showed that biofuel gives the lowest EROI compared to other renewable energy sources. Its EROI of 3.92, while positive, has been categorised as “not feasible for development”. If Indonesia plans to continue with its biofuel program, some major improvements will be necessary.

While self-reported life satisfaction (LS) has become an important research and policy tool, much debate still surrounds the question of what causes LS to change in certain individuals, while not in others. Set-point theory argues that individuals have a relatively resilient LS or \"set point\" (i.e. there is a certain LS level that individuals return to even after major life events). Here, we describe the extent to which LS varies over time for 12,643 individuals living in Australia who participated in at least eight annual waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. We use the standard deviation (SD) of year-on-year LS by individuals (SD of LS) as a measure of instability and an inverse proxy for resilience. We then model SD of LS as the dependent variable against average LS scores over time by individual, Big Five personality scores by individual, the number of waves the individual participated in, and other control variables. We found that SD of LS was higher (lower resilience) in participants with a lower average LS and greater degrees of extraversion and agreeableness. Set-point theory thus applies more to individuals whose average LS is already high and whose personality traits facilitate higher resilience. We were able to explain about 35% of the stability in LS. These results are critical in designing policies aimed at improving people's lives.

Light pollution has detrimental impacts on wildlife, human health, and ecosystem functions and services. This paper explores the impact of light pollution on the value of ecosystem services. We use the Simplified All-Sky Light Pollution Ratio (sALR) as a proxy for the negative impact of light pollution and the Copernicus PROBA-V Global Landcover Database as our proxy of ecosystem service value based on previously published ecosystem service values associated with a variety of landcovers. We use the sALR value to ‘degrade’ the value of ecosystem services. This results in a 40% reduction in ecosystem service value in those areas of the world with maximum levels of light pollution. Using this methodology, the estimate of the annual loss of ecosystem service value due to light pollution is USD 3.4 trillion. This represents roughly 3% of the total global value of ecosystem services and 3% of the global GDP, estimated at roughly USD 100 trillion in 2022. A summary of how these losses are distributed amongst the world’s countries and landcovers is also presented.

A high and sustainable quality of life is a central goal for humanity. Our current socio-ecological regime and its set of interconnected worldviews, institutions, and technologies all support the goal of unlimited growth of material production and consumption as a proxy for quality of life. However, abundant evidence shows that, beyond a certain threshold, further material growth no longer significantly contributes to improvement in quality of life. Not only does further material growth not meet humanity's central goal, there is mounting evidence that it creates significant roadblocks to sustainability through increasing resource constraints (i.e., peak oil, water limitations) and sink constraints (i.e., climate disruption). Overcoming these roadblocks and creating a sustainable and desirable future will require an integrated, systems level redesign of our socio-ecological regime focused explicitly and directly on the goal of sustainable quality of life rather than the proxy of unlimited material growth. This transition, like all cultural transitions, will occur through an evolutionary process, but one that we, to a certain extent, can control and direct. We suggest an integrated set of worldviews, institutions, and technologies to stimulate and seed this evolutionary redesign of the current socio-ecological regime to achieve global sustainability.

Indicators that attempt to gauge wellbeing have been created and used at multiple spatial scales around the world. The most commonly used indicators are at the national level to enable international comparisons. When analyzing subjective life satisfaction (LS), an aspect of wellbeing, at multiple spatial scales in Australia, variables (drawn from environmental, social, and economic domains) that are significantly correlated to LS at smaller scales become less significant at larger sub-national scales. The reverse is seen for other variables, which become more significant at larger scales. Regression analysis over multiple scales on three groups (1) all individuals within the sample, (2) individuals with self-reported LS as dissatisfied (LS ≤ 5), and (3) individuals self-reporting LS as satisfied (LS > 5), show that variables critical for LS differ between subgroups of the sample as well as by spatial scale. Wellbeing measures need to be created at multiple scales appropriate to the purpose of the indicator. Concurrently, policies need to address the factors that are important to wellbeing at those respective scales, segments, and values of the population.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a detailed dashboard of goals and targets agreed to by all 193 UN member countries. The 17 SDGs and associated 169 targets represent a global consensus, years in the making. They are an important step in the transition to a sustainable world because they open the door for much needed additional work. To achieve the SDGs, policy makers, scientists, and practitioners will have to clarify how the goals and targets interconnect, including trade-offs and synergies, and develop three additional elements: (1) an aggregation of metrics of human and ecosystem well-being, (2) dynamic models of the integrated system of humans and the natural world, and (3) innovative ways to build broad public consensus on the future we want - the details of a world in which the SDGs have been implemented.

Many contemporary societal challenges manifest themselves in the domain of human–environment interactions. There is a growing recognition that responses to these challenges formulated within current disciplinary boundaries, in isolation from their wider contexts, cannot adequately address them. Here, we outline the need for an integrated, transdisciplinary synthesis that allows for a holistic approach, and, above all, a much longer time perspective. We outline both the need for and the fundamental characteristics of what we call “integrated history.” This approach promises to yield new understandings of the relationship between the past, present, and possible futures of our integrated human–environment system. We recommend a unique new focus of our historical efforts on the future, rather than the past, concentrated on learning about future possibilities from history. A growing worldwide community of transdisciplinary scholars is forming around building this Integrated History and future of People on Earth (IHOPE). Building integrated models of past human societies and their interactions with their environments yields new insights into those interactions and can help to create a more sustainable and desirable future. The activity has become a major focus within the global change community.

We estimated the current value of ecosystem services for terrestrial ecosystems in 47 countries in the Asia and the Pacific region. Currently, these provide $US14 trillion/yr. in benefits, most of which are non-marketed and do not show up in GDP. We also estimated the changes in terrestrial ecosystem services value for scenarios to the year 2050, built around the four Great Transition Initiative archetypes: (1) Market Forces (MF); (2) Fortress World (FW); (3) Policy Reform (PR); and (4) Great Transition (GT). Results show that under the MF and FW scenarios the ecosystem services value in the region continues to decline from $14 trillion/yr in 2011 to $11 and $9 trillion/yr in 2050, respectively. In the PR scenario, the value is maintained around $14 Trillion/yr in 2050 and in the GT scenario it is significantly restored to $17 Trillion/yr. We also show more detailed maps and results for 8 selected countries in the region (Bhutan, China, India, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) and compare our results with a previous national study of Bhutan. Our results indicate that adopting a set of policies like those assumed in the GT scenario would greatly enhance human wellbeing and sustainability in the region.

Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success. Countries should act now to embrace new metrics, urge Robert Costanza and colleagues.

Despite universal recognition that environmental policy should be informed by robust scientific evidence, this is frequently (and perhaps increasingly) not the case, even in wealthy countries such as Australia. How can the scientific community respond to this fundamental problem? While acknowledging that many constructive actions can be taken, and that scientists have a direct responsibility to inform the policy-making process and advocate for sound policy positions, we contend that such responses are insufficient unless the wider community is better informed and engaged. We agree with those who believe that a broader democratization of the policy-making process is essential to improving this situation, and that an expanded application of scenario planning, augmented with targeted public-opinion surveys, has considerable potential. Used in this way, scenario planning can help scientists engage with and inform citizens about the kind of world they want to live in, while incorporating the best science about possible futures.