Planetary Boundaries

The Planetary Boundaries
Courtesy Stockholm Resilience Centre 2015 ©

The Planetary Boundaries concept has gained much recognition in recent years and has been used in multiple international fora such as the World Economic Forum, the UN and the World Business Council etc. (Richardson and Steffen, 2016). Its purpose is to identify limits beyond which human pressures on the earth system may become detrimental to the course of further social development (Richardson and Steffen, 2016).

The planetary boundaries concept centres its design on the development of a safe operating space for humanity (Leach et al., 2013). This concept has been defined as a space where life support systems are preserved at a level of care that allows their support of sustainable human development (Rockström et al., 2013; Häyhä et al., 2016). Scientists used the precautionary approach to define nine planetary boundaries which were then are set at a safe distance from their presumed tipping points. Four of the nine boundaries have been identified as already surpassing their thresholds. These include: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change and altered biogeochemical cycles (Steffen et al., 2015).

Integration of the Planetary Boundaries Concept and the Sustainable Development Goals

While the planetary boundaries were not explicitly mentioned in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, all nine of its system processes are addressed, either in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or in their 169 targets (Häyhä et al., 2016). Furthermore, the planetary boundaries concept was fundamental to the European Union’s 8th Environment Action Programme (EAP), which is geared towards achieving the aspiration of “Living well, within the limits of our planet” (European Commission, 2020).

A substantial amount of published literature, as well as ongoing research, is currently working towards integrating the planetary boundaries concept into sustainable development policy that is feasible across multiple scales. Such efforts account for different realities, capacities and priorities across regional, national and local levels.