For the second year in a row, the theme of Earth Day 2023 is “Invest in Our Planet,” focused on engaging governments, institutions, businesses, and civil society to accelerate change toward a prosperous planet. 

Every day is Earth Day at Future Earth, where our vision is of a sustainable and equitable future for all. We believe science is key to achieving this vision. So is collaboration among not only fellow researchers, but with policymakers, other organizations, the private sector, and civil society.

Below is just a snapshot of how Future Earth is investing in our planet through the lens of our three-pillar strategy: Facilitate research and innovation, build and mobilize networks, and shape the global narrative.

Facilitate Research and Innovation:

• Our 27 Global Research Networks provide our intellectual base. These networks are a key mechanism that Future Earth employs to generate solutions-focused and societally-relevant research. They are made up of researchers in all stages of their careers exploring interactions between natural, social and technological systems, and how those interactions affect, across time and space, the planet’s life support systems, socio economic development, and human wellbeing.
• Our various initiatives like The Earth Commission, Science-Based Pathways for Sustainability and others take on high-impact, transdisciplinary, sustainability research topics, steer research funding, and bring sound science to global policy, business and public discourse.

Build and Mobilize Networks:

• Our National and Local Committees from around the world  are independently organized groups of professionals in sustainability science, representing Future Earth communities in their countries or local regions in the Future Earth global structure.
• We engage with diverse Early Career Professionals from a range of disciplines and sectors who have been instrumental in advancing the Future Earth mission and vision, and bring new ideas and energy into our networks.
• The Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress is an annual transdisciplinary gathering of hundreds of scientists, innovators, business and civil society leaders working in the sustainability science space. The third edition is being held in Panama this June.
• As an accredited observer organization with UNFCCC, IPCC, CBD, IPBES and UN Environment, Future Earth engages regularly with various international science-policy processes to ensure there is a clear dialogue both from and to our community.
• 22 April 2023, marks the launch of the second edition of the Frontiers Planet Prize competition. This second edition will seek to increase the participation of scientists, research institutions and national academies across the globe, with the goal to continue mobilizing the scientific community for solutions to keep us within the boundaries of our planet’s ecosystem. Wendy Broadgate, Director of Sweden Global Hub, is on the advisory board.  The competition is chaired by Earth Commission Co-Chair Johan Rockstrom.

Shape the Global Narrative:

• Each year, we invite leading scientists from around the world to review the most pressing findings in climate change-related science, summarized into 10 New Insights in Climate Science. The Insights have been released yearly at the UNFCCC Conference yearly since 2017. The 2022 Insights are now available in Japanese.
• Anthropocene magazine is the award-winning print, digital and live magazine from Future Earth. Where traditional environmental reporting has focused on the crisis, Anthropocene focuses on solutions. The magazine is taking its acclaimed fiction series Climate Parables from the page to the stage this May in San Francisco.

Revisit articles that inspire key Earth Day themes: