Reducing groundwater extraction to sustainable levels may have detrimental impacts on global food security. Improving rainfed water use efficiency and investments in agricultural research and development can ensure sustainable groundwater resources and food security into the future.

While land use is often seen as a function of governance and economics, the role of culture is largely understudied. This study examines the cultural dynamics that play a role in a wide range of land-use outcomes globally

Mitigation efforts to protect agricultural productivity against flooding focus on areas with high-frequency floods. However, agricultural regions with low-frequency floods experience a larger proportion of flood impacts, highlighting the urgency of prioritizing mitigation efforts in these regions.

Getting coastal residents to understand the risk of rising sea levels can be difficult. This study finds that showing individuals top-down maps of future sea-level boundaries can be counterproductive to making residents concerned about climate impacts.

Past human land modification in the Amazon has resulted in nutrient- and carbon-rich soil deposits of great cultural and environmental value. A new remote-sensing and machine-learning approach reveals the extent of Amazonian dark earth and its potentially substantial carbon reservoir.

Grazing lands make important contributions to society, including meat and milk, but there are sustainability limits to their use for production. This study explores milk and meat production from grazing ruminants within biodiversity limits.

The net-zero transition will bring co-benefits to various sectors but also potential trade-offs that could undermine sustainable development efforts. A study shows that in China, the co-benefits from the transition alone will not secure a sustainable energy–food–water–air quality system.

Increasing the Ni content to replace Co can increase the capacity and sustainability of cathode for batteries but leads to performance degradation issues. Here the authors address the structural and oxygen instabilities of Ni-rich cathodes by doping with tellurium.

Developing depolymerizable and recyclable polymers with high light-emitting efficiencies is of vital importance for sustainable photonic technologies, but remains challenging. Here the authors design a strategy to develop such polymers based on the use of controllable cleavable moiety.

Sustainable methane oxidation has the potential to green the petrochemical industry. Here the authors demonstrate a cascade catalysis process involving photoconversion and then thermal decomposition at mild temperatures to form formaldehyde with a high selectivity and a high yield rate.

The sustainability community is increasingly calling for transformation, but action to transform is too slow. Nature Sustainability and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation have convened an expert panel to address the issue and recommend a way forward.

Green production of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) with a sunlight-driven or renewable-energy-powered electrochemical process provides a path to its decentralized production and sustainable end-use. Here, we discuss how to develop a fairer basis for performance evaluation of (photo)electrosynthesis of H₂O₂.

Photocatalytic water splitting could be used to sustainably produce hydrogen. To assess its performance, solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency is the most important metric. Here, we discuss the common problems in reporting this metric and propose the use of water displacement to accurately measure the solar-to-hydrogen efficiency.

The pervasive contamination of ecosystems with active pharmaceutical ingredients poses a serious threat to biodiversity, ecosystem services and public health. Urgent action is needed to design greener drugs that maintain efficacy but also minimize environmental impact.

Transitioning to a more sustainable economic system hinges on creating jobs in support of greener activities, with challenges for incumbent workers. A suite of articles highlights the need for more sustainable jobs and how to overcome the associated research gaps and political obstacles.

Although research has consistently shown that managing natural resources more sustainably is both feasible and beneficial for jobs and livelihoods, the perception that the green transition leads to job losses prevails. We recommend strategies for wider and better communicating evidence, to decision-makers across the board, about what is needed to reap job benefits from a green transition.