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Planetary Boundaries guide humanity’s future on Earth

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 5, pages 773–788 (2024)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 05 June 2025

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Abstract

Human pressures have pushed the Earth system deep into the Anthropocene, threatening its stability, resilience and functioning. The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework emerged against these threats, setting safe levels to the biophysical systems and processes that, with high likelihood, ensure life-supporting Holocene-like conditions. In this Review, we synthesize PB advancements, detailing its emergence and mainstreaming across scientific disciplines and society. The nine PBs capture the key functions regulating the Earth system. The safe operating space has been transgressed for six of these. PB science is essential to prevent further Earth system risks and has sparked new research on the precision of safe boundaries. Human development within planetary boundaries defines sustainable development, informing advances in social sciences. Each PB translates to a finite budget that the world must operate within, requiring strengthened global governance. The PB framework has been adopted by businesses and informed policy across the world, informing new thinking about fundamental justice concerns, and has inspired, among other concepts, the planetary commons, planetary health and doughnut economics. Future work must increase the precision and frequency of PB analyses, and, together with Earth observation data analytics, produce a high-resolution and real-time state of planetary health.

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Fig. 1: Origins, evolution and societal uptake of the Planetary Boundary framework.
Fig. 2: The evolution of the Planetary Boundaries framework.
Fig. 3: Planetary Boundary co-occurring terms.
Fig. 4: Past and possible future Earth system trajectories.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the European Research Council through the grant ERC-2016-ADG-743080 (the Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene project). J.F.D. is grateful for financial support by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) within the project ‘PIK_Change’ under grant 01LS2001A. L.W.E. further acknowledges financial support from Formas (2022-02089; 2019-01220), Horizon Europe (101081661) and the IKEA Foundation. The authors thank S. Cornell, who contributed advice and insights especially during the early stages of the manuscript, and L. Warszawski, who proofread the manuscript and provided advice. F. Pharand-Deschênes and J. Kaiser contributed to producing the figures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Johan Rockström, Jonathan F. Donges, Maria A. Martin & Lan Wang-Erlandsson

  2. Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Johan Rockström

  3. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Johan Rockström, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer & Lan Wang-Erlandsson

  4. Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ingo Fetzer & Lan Wang-Erlandsson

  5. Biodiversity Section — Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Katherine Richardson

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Contributions

J.R. developed the concept for this Review. I.F. and M.A.M. researched the data for the illustrations. J.R., J.F.D., I.F., M.A.M., L.W.E. and K.R. substantially contributed to the discussion of the content. J.R., J.F.D., M.A.M., L.W.E. and K.R. participated in writing and reviewing/editing the manuscript before submission.

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Rockström, J., Donges, J.F., Fetzer, I. et al. Planetary Boundaries guide humanity’s future on Earth. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 773–788 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00597-z

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