The urgency of the Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission’s report and IPBES transformations versus the ongoing Z transformation: the need to soften the human sustainability boundaries

Abstract

The Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission’s report proposes the translation of safe and just Earth-system boundaries across scales, transitions and transformations as being necessary to create a durable pathway to sustainability. Here we address the willingness and engagement of individual people to understand, feel the value, and implement the totality of its recommended transformations. We adopt an approach based on inner dimensions of sustainability. This depends on seven human critical determinants that we believe can act as human sustainability boundaries (HSB), but can be suitably softened. We conclude that the required softening of HSBs is unlikely to be successful without phasing down the current counter-sustainability Z transformation. This is an heir of the Neolithic and Industrial Revolutions, but has acquired its own powerful identity, and is apparently unable to deliver sustainability.