Engaging Science and Politics in a Post-2015 Framework

Enduring poverty and social inequality, in the face of rapid environmental change, have focused unprecedented attention on how social justice and environmental challenges are interlinked, from local to global levels. The post-2015 framework must address these challenges together, drawing on the natural and social sciences, and creating opportunities for inclusive, democratic debate around appropriate pathways to sustainability. Technical and social innovations have essential roles to play, but a new politics of innovation is also required. The concepts of social and planetary boundaries, integrated with a ‘3D agenda’ of direction, diversity and distribution, provide a framework which can guide such politics. They can inform deliberation and debate about the implications of different social, technological and environmental pathways to sustainability, and strategies to pursue them.