Earth for all: Five policy turnarounds for a sustainable world

Abstract

The second in the new series of reviews for Action Research Journal is inspired by, and aims to contribute to, this journal’s focus on transformations towards sustainability. How can we, as action researchers, connect our emancipatory, grassroots work with the big global transformations needed to bring forth a just, harmonious and thriving world? When so much needs to transform, where do we start? In 2022, the Club of Rome offered a possible response in a new report called Earth for All, also published as a book and supporting website. Framed as ‘a survival guide for humanity’, Earth for All calls for ‘five extraordinary policy turnarounds’: ending poverty; addressing gross inequality; empowering women; making our food system healthy for people and ecosystems; and transitioning to clean energy. It is ‘an aspirational, stubbornly optimistic guide to the future’ (p. 26). It argues that action on these five big issues could give us the momentum we need to transform the economy in support of sustainability. Action researchers can help to give this agenda momentum by bringing it into our conversations with citizens and facilitating spaces for dialogue and agonism.