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  • Correspondence
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An invitation for more research on transnational corporations and the biosphere

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 4, page 494 (2020)Cite this article

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To the Editor — We welcome the interest in our work on transnational corporations (TNCs) and biosphere stewardship. TNCs have rarely been linked to ecosystem dynamics, and even less so considered suitable partners for knowledge co-production in sustainability research. How TNCs shape the intertwined nature of people and planet therefore represents a timely and critical topic and the Correspondence articles by Schneider et al. and Etzion offer some important forward-looking research questions.

The Correspondence by Schneider et al. focuses on important tensions in corporate sustainability, several of which are addressed in the literature cited in our Perspective. The authors emphasize the past record of specific types of TNCs in generating unsustainability and driving undesirable social outcomes and inequality to, in effect, oppose the proposition that TNCs could become active agents of systemic change towards sustainability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

    Carl Folke, John M. Anderies, Anne-Sophie Crépin & Victor Galaz

  2. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Carl Folke, Henrik Österblom, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Beatrice I. Crona, Magnus Nyström, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Victor Galaz & Line J. Gordon

  3. Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere Academy Program (GEDB), Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

    Carl Folke, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Beatrice I. Crona, Alice Dauriach, Victor Galaz & James R. Watson

  4. School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, and Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Eric F. Lambin

  5. Georges Lemaître Earth and Climate Research Centre, Earth and Life Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Eric F. Lambin

  6. Geography, College of Life and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    W. Neil Adger

  7. Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality, Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands

    Marten Scheffer

  8. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Simon A. Levin

  9. Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Stephen R. Carpenter

  10. School of Human Evolution and Social Change, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    John M. Anderies

  11. Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA

    Stuart Chapin III

  12. Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Nils Kautsky

  13. CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Brian H. Walker

  14. College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    James R. Watson

  15. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    James Wilen

  16. Department of Economics, CentER and TSC, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands

    Aart de Zeeuw

Authors
  1. Carl Folke
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  2. Henrik Österblom
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  3. Jean-Baptiste Jouffray
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  4. Eric F. Lambin
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  5. W. Neil Adger
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  6. Marten Scheffer
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  7. Beatrice I. Crona
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  8. Magnus Nyström
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  9. Simon A. Levin
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  10. Stephen R. Carpenter
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  11. John M. Anderies
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  12. Stuart Chapin III
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  13. Anne-Sophie Crépin
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  14. Alice Dauriach
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  15. Victor Galaz
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  16. Line J. Gordon
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  17. Nils Kautsky
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  18. Brian H. Walker
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  19. James R. Watson
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  20. James Wilen
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  21. Aart de Zeeuw
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carl Folke.

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Folke, C., Österblom, H., Jouffray, JB. et al. An invitation for more research on transnational corporations and the biosphere. Nat Ecol Evol 4, 494 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1145-2

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