September saw the National Sustainability Society’s (NSS) inaugural conference take place at The University of Washington, Seattle. With over 600 participants, the event brought together academics, students, and practitioners from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors across the field of sustainability. 

The society’s mission is simple: to build an organization for shared, integrated, and globally flourishing professional practice and research for sustainability. By focusing on dialog and community building they aim to support professional and scholarly activities that will drive sustainable transformations across sectors. 

At the 2024 Sustainability Research and Innovation (SRI) Congress in Finland, the Frontiers Planet Prize led a key panel on overcoming academic challenges to advance transformational science. Moderated by Dr Gilbert De Gregorio, associate director of the Prize, the discussion emphasized the need for flexible funding, multidisciplinary collaboration, and innovative frameworks. Expert panelists, including Finland's National Champion Dr Olga Tammeorg, stressed the importance of breaking academic silos and supporting bold, cross-sectoral research to drive impactful solutions.

Following the announcement of the 2024 International Champions, a panel session titled “No time to waste,” was held to initiate discussions on how this research can be shaped and amplified to influence policy, the private sector, and civil society for a sustainable future. This article is a summary of the expertise showcased during the panel session, highlighting the need for systemic change for a just transition within the Earth’s ecological boundaries.

In June 2024, the second edition of the Frontiers Planet Prize Award Ceremony took place in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. This three-day event brought together 100 leading academics, policymakers, philanthropists, and public and private sector representatives to celebrate the transformational science of this year’s Frontiers Planet Prize National and International Champions. The article summarizes key activities and takeaways from this celebratory event.

The international champions of the 2024 Frontiers Planet Prize are three innovative scientists whose award-winning whose transformational research is influencing policies and practices so we can all live healthier, happier lives on a planet that can sustainably support us. Read this article to learn more about their groundbreaking work and how it influence society and policy.

Pedro Jaureguiberry ,the National Nominee of Argentina to the 2024 edition of the Frontiers Planet Prize, shares insights on his groundbreaking research on the loss of biodiversity.

The Frontiers Planet Prize celebrates breakthroughs in Earth system and planetary science that address the environmental challenges that humanity is facing and enable society to stay within our planet's safe ecological boundaries. The second edition of the Prize, announced on Earth Day 2024, honors 23 pioneering scientists as National Champions whose research has significant potential in fostering pathways to solutions, through driving systemic change toward a more sustainable future.

Yang Ou from Peking University, National Champion of China, shares a multifaceted strategy involving the transition to clean energy, enhancement of energy efficiency, and the adoption of carbon sequestration methods as means to maintaining the Earth’s climate within a safe operating space.

Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher from the University of Auckland, National Champion of New Zealand, shares her research insights on how we can use current ecological knowledge more effectively and find new solutions to environmental and societal problems by addressing the connections between science, governance, and management responses.

Umberto Berardi from Toronto Metropolitan University, National Champion of Canada, presents his research assessing a new class of cooling materials that can combat urban overheating and describes how his research supports the decision-making process associated with urban development and heat mitigation strategies.

Raquel Peixoto from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, National Champion of Saudi Arabia, shares why using microbial therapies for microbiome restoration and rehabilitation could be an easy and fast way to restore damaged wildlife and their ecosystems, and how this was successfully demonstrated on coral reefs.

Evan Economo from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, National Champion of Japan, shares his vision for creating a comprehensive “map of life” that will encompass all animal groups on Earth, and discusses how his research on ants could serve as an important stepping stone towards this vision.

Michał Bogdziewicz from Adam Mickiewicz University, National Champion of Poland, shares the pioneering insights from his research regarding the crucial role of tree fecundity in forest regeneration, and how these insights should be implemented in forest management to ensure forests continue to provide essential services to ecosystems and to human society.

Peter Haase from the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research and University of Duisburg-Essen, National Champion of Germany, presents the results of his research on European freshwater biodiversity, demonstrating that legislative measures can promote recovery in freshwater ecosystems, and should be pursued more stringently in the future.

Francesco Sabatini from the University of Bologna, National Champion of Italy, presents his novel approach to studying global plant community distribution and outlines how this approach can help formulate better predictions of future vegetation worldwide.

Olga Tammeorg from the University of Helsinki, National Champion of Finland, shares her thoughts on how controlling nutrient pollution in lakes can bring us back to the safe operating space of our planet.

Alexandra Velty from Universitat Politècnica de València, National Champion of Spain, explores the potential that solid chemical catalysts hold for the development of efficient and green catalytic processes, as an important part of global decarbonization efforts and healthier planetary development.

Daniel Muth from HUN-REN centre for economic and regional studies, National Champion of Hungary, shares his insights on how we can modify existing carbon pricing policies to make them more environmentally effective and politically appealing.

Marta Kozicka from the International institute for Applied Systems Analysis, National Champion of Austria, shares her thoughts on how a dietary shift towards plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, in combination with land-use policy measures, can significantly contribute to returning to a safe operating space.

Gerard Rocher-Ros from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Umeå University, National Champion of Sweden, explains how river restoration can contribute to the reduction of methane emissions and effectively contribute to the sustainability of our society within the planetary boundaries.