The 2015 edition of A Planet for Life reaches bookshelves in a landmark year for the world. A new development cooperation framework is being crafted while sustainable development goals (SDGs) are being laid out to address the 21st century’s most urgent sustainable development issues.

Innovation has become the new buzzword across the globe. International organisations, governments, corporates, academia and society see it as the answer to the major economic, social and environmental transformations challenging the models of the 20th century. 

The reduction of inequalities within and between countries stands as a policy goal, and deserves to take centre stage in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed during the Rio+20 Summit in 2012.

The 2013 edition of A Planet for Life represents a unique international initiative grounded on conceptual and strategic thinking, and – most importantly – empirical experiments, conducted on five continents and touching on multiple realities. This unprecedented collection of works proposes a solid empirical approach, rather than an ideological one, to inform future debate.

This book focuses on agriculture and its relation to development, food and the environment. At the end of the 2000s, a consensus has emerged and points to the urgent need for massive investment in the agricultural sector, which is (once again) viewed as one of the prime engines for development and food security, as well as for poverty reduction. But what exactly does this consensus cover? 

Oceans – The New Frontier explores how human community insistently pushes the oceans’ limits, seeking to exploit all of their varied resources – minerals, fisheries, fuels and genetic material. The ocean frontier is constantly being redefined by new discoveries, technologies, national strategies, and ecological imperatives. Increasing dependence of humanity on the resources of the oceans has blurred the boundaries between the mainland and oceans.

The twenty-first century is already an urban one. Cities are pivotal to sustainability concerns – globalization, climate change, food security, environmental protection, and innovation. Today’s urban actors, both citizens and their leaders, have a major responsibility as trustees of the future: their present actions will influence the shape and structure of cities, so that the generation to come may live healthy and contended lives. 

How is sustainable development to be made a reality? More than fifteen years after the Rio Conference, the question remains unanswered and has in fact been made more urgent by the vigorous mobilization of non-state actors, NGOs, enterprises and local communities. Recognizing the inadequacy of today’s governance system is not enough to settle the issue: we need to identify the premises of a new type of governance given the ongoing dynamics.