In the Anthropocene, humankind has become a quasi-geological force. Both the rapid development as well as the depth of intervention of new technologies result in far-reaching and irreversible anthropogenic changes in the Earth’s natural system. However, early and development-accompanying evaluation of technologies are not yet common sense. Against this background, this review article aims to compile the current state of knowledge with regard to the early sustainability assessment of technologies and to classify this status quo with respect to the key challenges of the Anthropocene. To that end, the paper initially outlines major existing definitions and framings of the term of sustainability. Key milestones, concepts and instruments with regard to the development of sustainability assessment and technology assessment (TA) methodologies are also presented. Based on this overview, the energy sector is used as an example to discuss how mirroring ongoing transformation processes can contribute to the further development of the TA framework in order to ensure an agile, goal-oriented, and future-proof assessment system.

In the Anthropocene, mankind is facing enormous challenges. Science and technology obviously have an essential role to play in addressing these challenges but have to be supplemented by the collaboration of different actors from the scientific and non-scientific community. Possibly beneficial technologies can only unfold their full potential if they are socially accepted. Participation and transdisciplinarity are key concepts in this regard. The need for methods fostering collaborative knowledge production and reverse communication from the public to the scientific community is accordingly high. In this article, we propose to apply Cognitive-Affective Mapping (CAM) to predict psychological acceptance of novel research fields and potentially resulting technologies. As an example, we use life-like materials systems. CAM enables acceptance prediction at an early stage—already for basic research when prototypes are not yet available. The method bridges the gap between qualitative and quantitative research traditions. Its product—Cognitive-Affective Maps (CAMs)—is a vivid visual tool. In perspective, CAM-based technology acceptance assessment can be conceived as a participatory, transdisciplinary practice.

A state-centric, militaristic, and capitalist-driven model of the liberal world appears incompatible with the measures required for addressing the global environmental threats in the proposed new geological epoch called the Anthropocene. While there have been discussions suggesting or implying the rejection or radical disruption of existing sets of institutional arrangements in global politics, I propose the possibility of locating effective responses to the Anthropocene challenges within the existing order, albeit a reformed or revised one. This paper presents ways of transforming the liberal international order, without abandoning some of its core values and institutions, through a greater emphasis on human security, global disarmament, and alternative economic models. The convergence of the liberal pursuit of peace and the global pursuit of survival is possible in the Anthropocene.

Global trade is a neglected topic in debates on the Anthropocene, but plays an implicit role in several suggested definitions of it. Trade’s role in shifting environmental burdens around the globe differed substantially between the Columbian Exchange (1492−1800), the Industrial Revolution (~1800−1950) and the Great Acceleration (post-1950). However, this systematic state-of-the-art review shows that the more than 350 global studies of trade-embedded environmental factors all centre on the Great Acceleration. An underlying concern here is whether environmental factor flows are to the economic and/or environmental benefit of all, a case of the rich exploiting the poor, or merely the inadvertent consequence of differences in environmental efficiency. We point out similarities in the trends and direction of flows between major world regions and between developed and developing countries. Factors such as land, virtual water, HANPP and eutrophying pollutants that are related to the organic economy (or direct biomass flows), primarily flow from regions where population density is low to where it is high, and are only secondarily affected by affluence. Indicators such as energy, airborne pollutant emissions and greenhouse gasses that are related to the mineral economy (fossil fuel, metal and mineral use) tend to flow from developing to developed countries, and are explained either by higher consumption rates or greater environmental efficiency in affluent countries, which has similar consequences for net flows. We weave the shifting trends and directions of flows during the Great Acceleration into a coherent story. Finally, returning to the period before the Great Acceleration, we argue the need for global studies of trade-embedded factor flows before 1950 to test ideas on the character and origins of the Anthropocene, and to accomplish this suggest either geographically extending quantitative long-term national and/or commodity studies, or environmentally extending recently compiled global monetary bilateral trade data for the pre-1950 period.

The Covid-19 pandemic has undermined many of our everyday certainties to such an extent that we should expect significant changes in the functioning of our societies from here onward. Increasingly, it is hoped that in this process of transformation the challenges of climate change will be addressed even if, to date, they have been considered with much less urgency than the pandemic. Here it is proposed that, despite certain important differences, the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change both follow a pattern from causal factors to effects that may be typical of the Anthropocene. Given these parallels, it is suggested that, on the basis of the increasing and cumulative impacts of climate change on planetary life conditions, we have as much or more reason to take quick and effective action on this challenge as on the Covid-19 pandemic.

The triumph of the Gaia hypothesis was to spot the extraordinary influence of Life on the Earth. ‘Life’ is the clade including all extant living beings, as distinct from ‘life’ the class of properties common to all living beings. ‘Gaia’ is Life plus its effects on habitability. Life’s influence on the Earth was hard to spot for several reasons: biologists missed it because they focused on life not Life; climatologists missed it because Life is hard to see in the Earth’s energy balance; Earth system scientists opted instead for abiotic or human-centred approaches to the Earth system; Scientists in general were repelled by teleological arguments that Life acts to maintain habitable conditions. Instead, we reason from organisms’ metabolisms outwards, showing how Life’s coupling to its environment has led to profound effects on Earth’s habitability. Recognising Life’s impact on Earth and learning from it could be critical to understanding and successfully navigating the Anthropocene.

In this work, we present a physically motivated Planetary Accounting Framework for the Earth System. We show that the impact of the human activity in terms of the planetary boundary variables can be accounted for in our Landau–Ginzburg phase transition physical formulation. We then use the interaction between climate change and ocean acidification mechanisms to exemplify the relation of the concentration and flux of substances of the planetary boundary variables, as proposed by the accounting framework of Meyer and Newman, with the underlying thermodynamic transformation, quantifiable by the Landau–Ginzburg inspired model.

Global urbanization and food production are in direct competition for land. This paper carries out a critical review of how displacing crop production from urban and peri-urban land to other areas – because of issues related to soil quality – will demand a substantially larger proportion of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface than the surface area lost to urban encroachment. Such relationships may trigger further distancing effects and unfair social-ecological teleconnections. It risks also setting in motion amplifying effects within the Earth System. In combination, such multiple stressors set the scene for food riots in cities of the Global South. Our review identifies viable leverage points on which to act in order to navigate urban expansion away from fertile croplands. We first elaborate on the political complexities in declaring urban and peri-urban lands with fertile soils as one global commons. We find that the combination of an advisory global policy aligned with regional policies enabling robust common properties rights for bottom-up actors and movements in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) as multi-level leverage places to intervene. To substantiate the ability of aligning global advisory policy with regional planning, we review both past and contemporary examples where empowering local social-ecological UPA practices and circular economies have had a stimulating effect on urban resilience and helped preserve, restore, and maintain urban lands with healthy soils.

Frank Oldfield (Oldfield F (2018) A personal review of the book reviews. The Anthropocene Review 5: 97–101) reflects about the need for conceptual frameworks to confront the Anthropocene challenge and about the capability of Marxism in this regard. Against his view, I argue that conceptual or epistemological frameworks are necessary to face this challenge and that Marxism is in the best position to do so when it is compared with other theoretical approaches.