Transformative pathways for synergising just biodiversity and climate actions

Project Information

TRANSPATH

Grant agreement ID: 101081984

DOI

10.3030/101081984

EC signature date 10 October 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 31 October 2026

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 2 730 203,75

EU contribution

€ 2 730 203,75

Coordinated by

WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TRANSPATH (Transformative pathways for synergising just biodiversity and climate actions)

Reporting period: 2024-05-01 to 2025-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Our planet is under mounting pressure. Under our current lifestyle, three planets would be needed to sustain present consumption. Unsustainable consumption and production are drivers of three planetary crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. While measures have been considered to address climate crises, global biodiversity and climate crises cannot be solved in isolation or by merely ramping up what is already being done. The global biodiversity and climate crises cannot be solved in isolation or by merely ramping up what is already being done. Urgent and ambitious transformative changes are needed in our economies and societies.
TRANSPATH’s main objective is to identify leverage points and interventions to trigger societal transformative changes at the consumer, producer, and organizational levels. By doing so, our project seeks whole-of-society opportunities for achieving climate neutrality while allowing local communities and nature to flourish. To understand transformative change, TRANSPATH draws on diverse contexts in Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

Through careful consideration of alternative visions, values, actions, and their systemic interplay across various scales and over time, TRANSPATH identifies strategic intervention points capable of triggering a chain reaction of positive changes in nature’s variety and abundance. These policies and actions are intended to make it easier for people to adopt eco-friendly choices across various levels of their daily lives. These interventions systematically assess the synergies and trade-offs between actions across multiple stakeholders and locations while addressing the significance of incentives and political impediments to implementation.
Thus, TRANSPATH intends to provide multiple channels to drive significant change and tools to help make those changes happen. It also offers guidance on using these tools effectively, recognizing that finding the best way to create meaningful change is an evolving, flexible process. To implement these changes, TRANSPATH builds a network of people who can lead and support these transformations, ensuring the decisions are inclusive and widely accepted.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first reporting period, TRANSPATH developed a comprehensive framework for transformative pathways that integrates climate and biodiversity actions. This framework synthesized knowledge on leverage points, tipping points, safe and just operating spaces, and regenerative sustainability, with emphasis on “net‑positive biodiversity‑climate tipping points.” A Transformative Navigation Toolkit was introduced to guide inclusive pathway design, while science‑policy‑practitioner labs advanced context analyses and stakeholder engagement across Europe. Parallel work examined trade and financial policies, highlighting their impacts on sustainability and the growing role of sustainable finance despite challenges in addressing dual materiality.

In the second reporting period, progress focused on reinforcing global analysis and context‑specific processes. Transformation Labs in Czechia and England provided structured spaces for dialogue and co‑creation, generating insights into system dynamics and leverage points. Policy reviews across key sectors identified interventions with strong biodiversity–climate synergies, while global scenario synthesis clarified interactions, synergies, and trade‑offs between pathways. Policy analysis pointed to promising interventions, such as collaborative initiatives and decentralized food systems, while also flagging risks and gaps. Additional outputs strengthened communication, policy engagement, and data stewardship, consolidating the project’s overall implementation.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

TRANSPATH aims to harness natural resources sustainably and drive social innovations that synergize biodiversity, climate adaptation, and mitigation. The goal is widespread adoption of these practices across society, transforming extraction, production, consumption, and trade to align with planetary limits. Actions should be regularly reviewed to maintain 'safe and just operating spaces.' This approach fosters diverse values, legitimacy, and integrated, long-term governance.

Specific outcomes of the intervention are:

i) The ability to navigate transformative paths is made possible and connected across the European Union, Member States, and local levels through policies and decision-making that are integrated, inclusive, adaptive, and diverse.
ii) Individuals, communities, businesses, and authorities are actively engaged and inspired to change their daily life decisions affecting global sustainability challenges through locally tailored leverage points that accelerate shifts to sustainable and just extraction, production, consumption, and trade.
iii) Integrated assessment across biodiversity, climate, and other sustainability goals becomes a significant practice that leverages synergies between biodiversity-climate actions. This, in turn, helps environmental policies become a source of economic innovation rather than a financial burden.
iv) Interventions robustly support shifts toward sustainable extraction, production, consumption, and trade. These interventions back transformative niche innovations and exert pressure on existing socio-economic systems and practices through economic instruments, enhanced governance, and a pro-environmental choice architecture.