Supported by a President’s Special Initiative grant, Create the Change (CTC) addresses the moral, economic, and cultural challenges to planetary health that evade material or technological solutions, emphasizing the need for engagement from the social sciences and humanities alongside sustainability sciences. Built on four intellectual pillars—countering disinformation, addressing social and environmental justice, embracing alternative knowledge systems, and educating future change agents—CTC supports human sciences-led initiatives over a three-year period to develop an “action and accountability framework” for planetary health.

At the symposium, participants stressed the importance of leveraging local knowledge and cultural context to tailor decarbonization efforts to meet the unique needs of each community. Several presenters explored how the integration of humanists and the humanities plays a crucial role in creating a more equitable and sustainable energy future by anticipating and addressing potential ethical, social, and historical disadvantages that might otherwise be overlooked.

This event brought together diverse Indigenous elders, poets, writers and scholars together with environmental humanists to reassess what it means to care for ocean commons. Participants explored how the commons are conceptualized from the perspectives of Indigenous Taiwan in relation to other Pacific island nations and oceanic cultures — whether it be terrestrial, aquatic, atmospheric or sociocultural.

The UNESCO BRIDGES Flagship Signature Series of Humanities Labs fosters interdisciplinary collaboration to address global sustainability challenges through research, storytelling, and engagement. By exploring themes such as ocean storytelling, planetary citizenship, energy justice, and gender equity, these labs empower students to rethink dominant narratives and create just, inclusive futures.

HfE affiliates at ASU launched a food-focused project at the North American Observatory, rethinking food systems through an Indigenous-focused, syndemic lens in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Syndemic,’ a term meaning ‘synchronous pandemics.’ Supported by multiple ASU initiatives, the project brought together scholars, chefs, and knowledge keepers to explore the interconnected challenges of food insecurity, climate injustice, and public health through readings, films, and discussions.

The UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES Flagship Hub is anchored in the Global Futures Laboratory (GFL) at Arizona State University (ASU). UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES is the world’s first humanities-driven sustainability science coalition focused on effectively addressing complex problems highlighted by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Contributors, including senior academics, community members and students raise questions about the consequences of ecological transformation and control for wildlife, plants and the human-nature relationship. They examine both traditional notions of stewardship (e.g., the idea of overlooking) and also cultural blindspots in traditional modes of interacting with nature.

Humanities for the Environment is an international system of observatories, and ASU serves as the headquarters of the North American Observatory. The aim of the HFE Observatories, funded in their first phase by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is to identify, explore and demonstrate the contributions that humanistic and artistic disciplines can make to understanding and engaging with global environmental challenges.