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Cross-discipline evidence principles for sustainability policy

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Evidence-based approaches to sustainability challenges must draw on knowledge from the environment, development and health communities. To be practicable, this requires an approach to evidence that is broader and less hierarchical than the standards often applied within disciplines.

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Fig. 1: The four principles that underpin a cross-disciplinary approach to evidence.

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Acknowledgements

We thank I. Fazey for extensive input that thoroughly improved the manuscript and Z. Burivalova for input on the design of Fig. 1. This collaboration was supported by a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to H.T., E.T.G. and L.O. S.M.A. acknowledges support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center through NSF grant no. DBI-1052875. W.J.S. is funded by Arcadia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Nature Conservancy, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Edward T. Game

  2. University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Edward T. Game

  3. The Nature Conservancy, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Heather Tallis

  4. Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Lydia Olander

  5. National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland, Annapolis, MD, USA

    Steven M. Alexander

  6. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Steven M. Alexander

  7. Environmental Change and Governance Group, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

    Steven M. Alexander

  8. Center for Global Development, Washington DC, USA

    Jonah Busch

  9. Philosophy Department, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3HN, UK

    Nancy Cartwright

  10. University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Nancy Cartwright

  11. The Nature Conservancy, Durham, NC, USA

    Elizabeth L. Kalies

  12. The Nature Conservancy, Seattle, WA, USA

    Yuta J. Masuda

  13. Department of Biometry and Environmental System Analysis, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Anne-Christine Mupepele

  14. Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher Str. 4, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Anne-Christine Mupepele

  15. School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Florida, FL, USA

    Jiangxiao Qiu

  16. Division of the National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

    Andrew Rooney

  17. Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, NC State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Erin Sills

  18. Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    William J. Sutherland

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  1. Edward T. Game
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  2. Heather Tallis
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  3. Lydia Olander
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  4. Steven M. Alexander
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  5. Jonah Busch
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  6. Nancy Cartwright
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  7. Elizabeth L. Kalies
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  8. Yuta J. Masuda
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  9. Anne-Christine Mupepele
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  10. Jiangxiao Qiu
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  11. Andrew Rooney
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  12. Erin Sills
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  13. William J. Sutherland
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edward T. Game.

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Game, E.T., Tallis, H., Olander, L. et al. Cross-discipline evidence principles for sustainability policy. Nat Sustain 1, 452–454 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0141-x

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