Earth system governance

Earth system governance (or earth systems governance) is a broad area of scholarly inquiry that builds on earlier notions of environmental policy and nature conservation, but puts these into the broader context of human-induced transformations of the entire earth system. The integrative paradigm of earth system governance has evolved into an active research area that brings together a variety of disciplines including political science, sociology, economics, ecology, policy studies, geography, sustainability science, and law.^[1]

ESG research can be carried out under a conceptual framework of five analytical problems which are all highly interlinked.^[2][3] These analytical problems are "problems of the overall architecture of ESG, of agency beyond the state and of the state, of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and processes, of their accountability and legitimacy and of modes of allocation and access in ESG".^[2] They share at least four cross-cutting themes which are "power, knowledge, norms and scale".

Hundreds of scholars who are interested in ESG research have joined forces within the Earth System Governance Project, a large research network and interdisciplinary social science research alliance which began in 2009.^[4]