Humanity is exceeding the safe operating space defined by the Planetary Boundaries. If we continue on this path, we risk irreversible damage to ecosystems and our own future. Urgent action is needed. But where should policymakers begin? The challenge is complex and systemic: it concerns multiple environmental pressures that are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, affecting life from local living environments to the global level. While the concept of Planetary Boundaries may be clear on a global scale, the translation to the national scale and to policies is not. This is why this Policy Brief aims to support the development of tools that enable policy makers to understand and intervene in the complex cause-and-effect chains related to the crossing of the Planetary Boundaries. This is where the DAPSIR framework can help. DAPSIR (Drivers–Activities–Pressures–States–Impacts–Responses) maps out the cause-effect relationships between societal drivers, economic activities, environmental pressures, and their impacts. When linked to Planetary Boundaries, a structure to help understand the complexity of environmental pressures is created. This enables policymakers to justify integrated decisions that address not only the direct and most pressing issues for a single governmental department, but also consider the broader ecological, economic, and health-related effects. To operationalise this connection, robust and meaningful indicators are needed to track pressures and progress. The corresponding indicators can be collected from research on Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Footprints. As the impacts of the transgression of planetary boundaries extend to all aspects of life, it is necessary to take a broader perspective and complement environmental indicators with social and economic indicators. To apply the DAPSIR method a roadmap is proposed and tested. The plan has seven stages: from ‘clarify the issue’ to ‘monitor and evaluate’. This roadmap helps to transform the classic roles of fragmented policymaking into integral thinking. It is in the practical application setting that social and economic aspects will be an evident set of additional considerations, as they are put forward by stakeholders involved in the process. Thus, the proposed framework not only provides insights into current environmental pressures but also highlights where further data collection and research are needed.
Horlings et al. (Tue,) studied this question.