Patchwork Earth: Navigating pathways to an emerging future

Different regions, with different contexts and values, will follow different sustainability transformation pathways, leading to tensions and opportunities as regional pathways interact. Many aspects of sustainability shifts and their interactions are likely to be novel, difficult to influence, or unpredictable. To navigate these changes, we need a better understanding of the outcomes for people and nature of regional pathway interactions. We suggest four modes of interregional interaction: aggregation, compensation (leakage), learning, and contagion and propose that navigation to a better future will require envisioning diverse desirable futures, nurturing seeds of sustainability, and navigating pathways together through co-production, reflection, and action.