Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Global food systems are dependent on nature’s contributions to people (NCP), yet the role of such contributions in international trade is largely underrecognised. Using publicly available data on the configuration of natural and cultural landscapes, we developed a spatially-explicit approach to map, quantify and trace a regulating NCP (wild pollination) and a non-material NCP (supporting identities) underpinning Brazilian coffee and soy supply-chains from producing municipalities to importing countries. Our approach for mapping supporting identities at large scales shows feasibility of using publicly available data for such an analysis. Our results show unequal NCP distributions across producing regions and trade flows. From the agricultural production potentially attributable to wild pollination, 74% was exported in the case of coffee, and 66% in the case of soy. The coffee and soy farm identities mapping indicates that soy producing landscapes are less diverse than coffee ones. For both products, the largest share of imports comes from municipalities with farm identities linked to lower agriculture-natural ecosystem integration. Results suggest that smallholder farmers rely more on wild pollination and therefore are potentially more vulnerable to ecosystem degradation. Our approach provides a framework to assess how NCP underpin food trade at finer spatial resolution and locates where and which supply chain actors can collaborate to support and leverage more sustainable uses of natural and cultural resources.

Biodiversity loss is part of the triple planetary crises and is strongly driven by global patterns of consumption, production, and international trade. Environmentally extended multi-regional input–output (EE-MRIO) models are widely used to trace environmental pressures along global supply chains, yet most biodiversity footprint studies are limited to historical snapshots or marginal changes after shocks. Forward-looking assessments that capture long-term structural transformations in socioeconomic development, technology, and trade remain scarce.In this study, we develop a framework for constructing prospective EE-MRIOs by systematically integrating scenario outputs from the integrated assessment model IMAGE into the global MRIO database EXIOBASE. The economic scenario information includes projections of macroeconomic development, industrial production, energy and crop system transitions, prices, and trade patterns. The environmental stressors include greenhouse gas emissions and land use, two main drivers of biodiversity loss. Prospective EE-MRIOs are generated for a business-as-usual baseline (SSP2) and three policy-oriented scenarios of reduced demand, protected areas, and climate mitigation.As an initial application, we compare CO2 emission footprints in 2019 with projections in 2035 under SSP2. The results show that rapidly growing regions such as rest of Asia, India, and rest of Africa experience strong emissions increases due to fast economic growth combined with relatively slow decarbonization, whereas emissions decline in regions such as the USA, Western Europe, and China as a result of stronger decarbonization and slower population-driven GDP growth. This highlights a growing divergence in regional emission trajectories driven by unequal structural transformation.Building on this baseline, the prospective EE-MRIOs enable a consistent forward-looking analysis of the responsibility allocation of biodiversity loss along global supply chains, the evolution of consumption-based drivers of biodiversity loss under different development pathways, and the assessment of synergies, trade-offs, and leakage effects under climate mitigation, conservation, and demand-side strategies. By providing a structurally consistent representation of future global supply chains, this work offers a new quantitative basis for evaluating long-term biodiversity risks and supporting long-term policy design.

Mining poses significant threats to freshwater ecosystems, with impacts often enduring long after operations cease. Growing concerns suggest that mining expansion to meet global mineral demands for decarbonization may amplify cumulative risks to freshwater biodiversity. However, the biological magnitude and spatial extent of these impacts remain poorly understood, hampering our ability to meet international conservation targets. We present an integrated global assessment quantifying the severity of biodiversity impacts and mapping priority conservation areas at risk from mining activities.We synthesize standardized biodiversity data from studies worldwide to quantify mining impacts. Although research has largely focused on terrestrial systems, our results show that freshwater biodiversity is more severely affected, with significant reductions in species richness and abundance. Yet, some taxa persist or even increase in sites affected by mining, largely due to tolerant and generalist species able to exploit disturbed environments. This pattern masks the loss of sensitive taxa and compositional turnover, rather than gain in biodiversity. Freshwater invertebrates show the largest population declines, whereas fishes exhibit greater variability, with higher-trophic taxa declining most as prey availability drops and food-web structures shift. To assess spatial patterns of impact, we applied an aggregated community metric (mean species abundance), revealing that while the intensity of impacts decreases with distance, they remain detectable far downstream.Considering this downstream propagation, we map the global extent of freshwater biodiversity exposure to mining-related contamination and its overlap with conservation areas. We estimate that around 16% of affected rivers are located within Protected Areas and Key Biodiversity Areas. Although much of the current discourse centres on minerals essential for low-carbon technologies, we find gold and coal mining responsible for the most extensive impacts. Artisanal and small-scale operations are major contributors, likely causing disproportionate impacts due to their frequently unregulated nature.By integrating quantitative evidence of biodiversity loss with spatial mapping of risk, we provide the first comprehensive global assessment of mining impacts on freshwater biodiversity. Our findings reveal both the most threatened taxonomic groups and conservation sites, highlighting the urgent need for hydrologically informed conservation planning and stronger environmental governance to reconcile mineral demand with global biodiversity goals.

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Scenarios represent a critical tool in climate change analysis, enabling the exploration of future evolution of the climate system, climate impacts, and the human system (including mitigation and adaptation actions). This paper describes the scenario framework for ScenarioMIP as part of CMIP7. The design process, initiated in June 2023, has involved various rounds of interaction with the research community and user groups at large. The proposal covers a set of scenarios exploring high levels of climate change (to explore high-end climate risks), medium levels of climate change (anchored to current policy action), and low levels of climate change (aligned with current international agreements). These scenarios follow very different trajectories in terms of emissions, with some likely to experience peaks and subsequent declines in greenhouse gas concentrations. An important innovation is that most scenarios are intended to be run, if possible, in emission-driven mode, providing a better representation of the earth system uncertainty space. The proposal also includes plans for long-term extensions (up to 2500 AD) to study slow climate change-related processes, and (ir)reversibility. This proposal forms the basis for further implementation of the framework in terms of the derivation of climate forcing pathways for use by earth system models and additional variants for adaptation and mitigation studies.

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Scenarios represent a critical tool in climate change analysis, enabling the exploration of future evolution of the climate system, climate impacts, and the human system (including mitigation and adaptation actions). This paper describes the scenario framework for ScenarioMIP as part of CMIP7. The design process, initiated in June 2023, has involved various rounds of interaction with the research community and user groups at large. The proposal covers a set of scenarios exploring high levels of climate change (to explore high-end climate risks), medium levels of climate change (anchored to current policy action), and low levels of climate change (aligned with current international agreements). These scenarios follow very different trajectories in terms of emissions, with some likely to experience peaks and subsequent declines in greenhouse gas concentrations. An important innovation is that most scenarios are intended to be run, if possible, in emission-driven mode, providing a better representation of the earth system uncertainty space. The proposal also includes plans for long-term extensions (up to 2500 AD) to study slow climate change-related processes, and (ir)reversibility. This proposal forms the basis for further implementation of the framework in terms of the derivation of climate forcing pathways for use by earth system models and additional variants for adaptation and mitigation studies.

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Scenarios represent a critical tool in climate change analysis, enabling the exploration of future evolution of the climate system, climate impacts, and the human system (including mitigation and adaptation actions). This paper describes the scenario framework for ScenarioMIP as part of CMIP7. The design process, initiated in June 2023, has involved various rounds of interaction with the research community and user groups at large. The proposal covers a set of scenarios exploring high levels of climate change (to explore high-end climate risks), medium levels of climate change (anchored to current policy action), and low levels of climate change (aligned with current international agreements). These scenarios follow very different trajectories in terms of emissions, with some likely to experience peaks and subsequent declines in greenhouse gas concentrations. An important innovation is that most scenarios are intended to be run, if possible, in emission-driven mode, providing a better representation of the earth system uncertainty space. The proposal also includes plans for long-term extensions (up to 2500 AD) to study slow climate change-related processes, and (ir)reversibility. This proposal forms the basis for further implementation of the framework in terms of the derivation of climate forcing pathways for use by earth system models and additional variants for adaptation and mitigation studies.

Impactful knowledge generation and utilisation, aiming at addressing environmental and sustainability challenges, requires meaningful interaction between scientists, stakeholders, policymakers and society. This study identifies key success factors and challenges at the science-policy-practice interaction, drawing on document analysis, interviews, and workshops involving experts, policymakers, and funders of environmental and sustainability research and innovation across 14 European countries. Experiences from current practices highlight the highly variable contexts for interaction and communication throughout Europe, a diverse range of tools and approaches, and differing levels of available resources. Siloed structures and the need to engage various societal sectors and levels of governance remain significant challenges. The development and employment of expertise in communication, interaction and knowledge co-creation, capable to orchestrate this variability, is essential. Greater recognition of the diverse dimensions of inclusive participation is proposed to ensure that environmental and sustainability research and innovation, aimed at societal transformation, leaves no one behind.

Abstract Regional disparities in mitigation capacity and the slow deployment of certain novel technologies pose significant challenges to achieving ambitious climate goals. We explore how accounting for technological and mitigation capacity considerations alters the regional distribution of mitigation efforts, and how these shifts relate to fairness considerations, all while staying within the scenario space aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. To do so, we use a new set of scenarios generated using eight global integrated assessment models (IAMs). These scenarios shift near-term mitigation efforts to regions with greater mitigation capacity by implementing differentiated carbon pricing and emission caps, deviating from the default assumption of a uniform carbon price in global IAMs. We examine the scale of regional emissions reductions and energy system transformations needed, highlighting the implications in the near term. Our findings from the most ambitious scenario, highlight that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries could reduce total CO 2 emissions as reported in the models by approximately 85% (range: 81%–114%) by 2040 relative to 2020 levels and achieve net-zero CO 2 emissions around 2045—well beyond the 58% reduction (range: 33%–71%) projected under default 2 °C pathways with a globally uniform carbon price. Similarly, China could reduce CO 2 emissions by 78% (range: 55%–83%) by 2040 and reach net-zero by 2050, compared to a 50% reduction (range: 47%–72%) in default scenarios. In this ambitious scenario, other regions could aim to reach net-zero CO 2 by 2070. This redistribution of mitigation efforts involves an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—primarily within the OECD region and, to a certain extent, in China. It also includes an early—but, in line with our feasibility considerations, limited—scale-up of carbon capture and storage capacity, along with significant reductions in final energy demand that go beyond current pledges and ambition levels. Beyond feasibility considerations, the new scenarios assume more mitigation efforts in regions with higher mitigation capacity proxied through institutional capacity, consistent with a capacity-based conception of regional fairness. Integrating certain considerations of feasibility and fairness into scenario assessments enables the development of alternative pathways that are, in some respects, more policy-relevant and help expand the scenario space—thereby responding to some of the recent critiques of global IAMs.

Abstract Food systems exert significant stress on planetary boundaries1–3 while healthy diets are currently unaffordable for billions worldwide4. These challenges are expected to continue under global population trends, projected to reach 9.6 billion by mid-century5. Food systems must therefore transform in pursuit of health and sustainability goals6–8. However, the scale and distribution of this transformation on agriculture is underexplored. Here we show that, by 2050, an EAT-Lancet style food systems transformation results in a fundamental restructuring of global agriculture, aspects of which break with historical trends. Scenario simulations using a multi-model ensemble of 10 global economic models show a 6% median decrease in agricultural land of 274Mha (+1 to -26%, +48 to -1257Mha) compared to 2020 levels. By 2050, agricultural production would be 2 to 32% (-0.2x109 to -3.7x109 tonnes) lower than business-as-usual projections, and economically, the value of this production shows a 26% median relative decline of $1.6tn in USD2020 (+8% to -58%, +$0.5tn to -$2.9tn USD2020) Within this, the value of livestock production would fall substantially (-$1tn to -$2.2tn, -49% to -83%). These results reinforce the need for a more active role for food policy and stakeholder dialogue to catalyse such a transformation and navigate the political economic consequences of its impacts.

This study presents a comparative cradle-to-gate environmental and economic evaluation of nine synthetic routes for Molnupiravir (EIDD-2801), a broad-spectrum antiviral drug. Integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Life Cycle Costing (LCC), we quantified the environmental impacts alongside capital and operational costs, net present costs, and break-even prices of each route. The results reveal significant variation across the schemes, with Schemes #1 and #2 exhibiting the highest impacts and costs due to intensive use of chloroform and diethyl ether, while Scheme #8 demonstrated the lowest impacts and costs, benefitting from higher batch output, greener solvents, and process intensification. Scenario analyses showed that solvent recovery improves sustainability only when high recovery rates are combined with clean electricity; otherwise, the additional energy demand may offset benefits. Scale-up analysis confirmed that higher production scales substantially reduce per-gram impacts and costs, supporting economies of scale. These findings highlight the critical role of solvent management, energy sourcing, the use of sustainability assessment at the earliest stages of innovation, and process design in aligning green chemistry with economic viability. The proposed integrated LCA-LCC framework provides transferable insights to guide sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing and supports the development of evidence-based policy for greener antiviral drug production.