This intervention study in Golaghat District of Assam, India, aimed to improve Infant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN) through community-based strategies. The study utilized materials and modules developed by the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) and followed National Guidelines on IYCN, incorporating local languages to enhance comprehension and participation during training intervention. The study's results were evident in the significant improvement across several key indicators post-intervention, like increase in the knowledge of the benefits of breastfeeding from 31.52% to 47.83%, and the practice of initiating breastfeeding within the first hour of birth from 34.78% to 48.04%. Additionally, awareness of colostrum feeding benefits saw a rise from 10.87% to 48.48%, and the practice of exclusive breastfeeding increased from 73.91% to 89.57% during a period of 3 months. The study successfully fostered a supportive community environment, evidenced by the establishment of 42 Model Mother Support Groups (MSGs), signifying the potential for scalability and sustainability of the intervention. This initiative represents a significant contribution to the global efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals related to reducing child mortality and improving nutrition, demonstrating the critical role of community engagement and education in advancing public health outcomes.
Australians discard 7.6 million tonnes of food annually, with households responsible for more than a third. Saveful is a mobile application designed to support households reduce food waste and improve financial outcomes. By guiding users to cook with ingredients they already have, Saveful aims to support mindful consumption and sustainable habits. This article reports findings from a naturalistic longitudinal, observational field study involving over 32,000 surveys completed by 10,699 users over 12 months. On average, households reported wasting 1.47 kg of food weekly. Among users who actively logged recipes, a total of 5879 kg of food was recorded as saved, equivalent to approximately $32,452 based on national estimates of food waste costs. Scenario-based extrapolation suggests that if similar behaviours were adopted more broadly, aggregate savings would amount to $75.6 million annually. Segmentation identified three user personas: The Everyday Saver, The Savvy Saver, and The Conscious Starter. Cooking frequency was positively associated with food savings, suggesting the more people cook at home, the more they save food. These findings provide insight into how digitally delivered interventions such as Saveful may support changes in household food management practices, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals of responsible consumption, economic growth, and climate action.
As functional technology becomes a daily necessity rather than a convenience, it increasingly reshapes human cognition. This paper applies the Information Technology (IT) addiction model to WAZE, investigating how a utilitarian navigation tool triggers behavioral patterns typically associated with "hedonic" platforms like social media. Based on 50 in-depth interviews, the study highlights a significant "shedding of responsibility" among users, particularly digital natives, who now bypass personal judgment in favor of algorithmic spatial orientation. This dependency is characterized by four key parameters: mood modification, conflict, relapse, and withdrawal. The societal impact is profound, suggesting potential changes in spatial and decision-making practices, such as spatial memory and autonomous judgment, in exchange for algorithmic efficiency. This "unconscious dependency" creates a new social reality where the absence of a digital tool results in acute psychological distress and reported difficulty navigating without the application. The study concludes that the integration of automated systems into daily tasks necessitates a broader understanding of how modern technology reshapes human agency and the long-term cognitive costs of technological convenience.
This study investigated the social and environmental consequences of student behaviors that predispose them to environmental health risks in Ghanaian higher education institutions (HEIs). Employing a structured risk assessment model and hierarchization matrix analysis, the project identified students as the most sensitive human element within the Academic Environmental Management System (AEMS), while university administrators emerged as the most influential actors affecting institutional risk dynamics. Risk scenarios were systematically modeled to evaluate both the likelihood and severity of potential harm. Findings demonstrated that 68% of students consistently engaged in behaviors that heightened exposure to environmental hazards. The study underscored the urgent need for safety culture reforms within universities and recommended institutional adoption of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) to formalize hazard mitigation and preventive governance. This short communication reports measurable societal impacts, outlines methodological foundations, and discusses broader implications for environmental governance, public health management, and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Springs are the primary source of freshwater for millions of people in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR), sustaining domestic, agricultural, and ecological needs. Climate change, deforestation, and unregulated land-use transformation have accelerated the drying of these vital sources. This paper presents the societal impacts of a National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS) pilot project on spring rejuvenation conducted in the Darjeeling hills, India, between 2019 and 2024. The project mapped 300 springs using GIS-based spatial analysis and implemented ecological and community-based rejuvenation of two critical sources, resulting in measurable recovery in spring discharge and improved water access for approximately 200 households. The work advances Sustainable Development Goals 5, 6, 10, 13, and 15, with particular attention to gender equity and reduced inequality through documented participation of women and marginalised communities. This paper is a field study with a prospective AI agenda, not a report of implemented AI deployment. While AI-based tools were not used during the project intervention, the rich empirical record provides a strong basis for proposing AI-enabled approaches, predictive mapping, real-time discharge monitoring, and decision-support systems, to scale spring management ethically and sustainably. The paper discusses both the potential and the risks of such integration, including digital exclusion, algorithmic bias, and data governance. This integration of community engagement, traditional knowledge, and prospective technological innovation offers a replicable model for equitable water security in vulnerable mountain regions of the Global South.
Nutrient loading associated with runoff in agricultural watersheds is a problem with societal impacts. Conservation practices on fields within agricultural watersheds significantly reduce nutrient losses to adjacent water bodies. We explore this concept using Beasley Lake, an oxbow lake with a small contributing watershed in the Lower Mississippi River Basin. Since 1996, three conservation practices have been implemented on agricultural lands surrounding Beasley Lake: a vegetated buffer strip (VBS), wildlife habitat established under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and a sediment retention pond. The USDA Agricultural Research Service’s National Sedimentation Laboratory has been actively tracking changes in lake nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in response to practice implementation. Results show a decrease in nitrate and total P (TP) during the monitoring period. Watershed simulations also demonstrated decreases in nutrient loads related to VBS and CRP practices. These nutrient reductions resulted in an estimated environmental damage costs (EDC) decrease of approximately 41,000 – 66,000 USD$ yr-1. This work impacts society by (i) displaying how best management practices for landscapes can mitigate nutrient loading into waterbodies from agriculture; and (ii) increasing awareness of how best management practices impact EDC associated with nutrient losses and the positive implications of their reduction.
This paper advances the Energy Performance Certification (EPC) discourse in West Africa by reframing EPC from a narrow energy-efficiency instrument to a broader societal transition tool linking governance quality, digital innovation, and inclusive energy transition outcomes. It presents the first comparative assessment of EPC implementation in Ghana and Nigeria over the period 2007–2024, using a mixed-methods approach that integrates surveys of energy professionals, semi-structured interviews, and policy analysis. The findings show that EPC uptake is constrained by institutional fragmentation, limited technical capacity, and weak enforcement, while governance structure plays a decisive role in shaping outcomes. Ghana’s centralized model promotes policy coherence and market credibility, whereas Nigeria’s decentralized system enables flexibility but suffers from coordination gaps. Empirical evidence indicates that EPC adoption can deliver energy savings of up to 30%, reduce emissions, and support green job creation through assessor training and certification. A key contribution of the study is its demonstration of how digital EPC infrastructure, such as mobile audit tools and online registries, can enhance transparency, compliance, and societal trust. By explicitly linking EPC outcomes to SDGs 7, 9, 11, 13, and 17, the paper positions EPC as a strategic policy lever for an inclusive, data-driven energy transition in West Africa and outlines a sequenced pathway for future implementation.
Towards a circular bio-based economy, a just transition is critical to guarantee equitable distribution of benefits and prevent the exclusion of certain groups. Transition is inherently complex and requires comprehensive assessments of its multi-dimensional impacts. However, current evaluation frameworks often prioritise economic and environmental factors while neglecting social indicators, including equity, inclusion, and well-being. This gap calls for transdisciplinary approaches, merging insights from social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences to co-develop solutions. Accordingly, this paper aims to understand how socio-cultural dimension influence the transition. Building on a literature review, dynamic modelling, and indicator collection, we investigate more precisely the gender and age aspects of a just transition. The key aspects identified are related to the absence of a gender perspective in public policymaking and research, and the shortcomings in educational frameworks for fostering critical bioeconomy literacy among diverse age groups. Addressing these gaps requires a multi-pronged strategy including the promotion of behavioural change, building knowledge-sharing networks, policy integration with gender and intersectionality perspectives, and inclusive and resilient business models. Finally, adopting a holistic approach to boost the transition in the right direction can foster greater inclusivity and create a more balanced and sustainable bioeconomy landscape, benefiting diverse communities and stakeholders.
At times when social issues end their experiencers collide - such as while answering survey questions - a dominance relationship unfailingly results. A respondent dominates an issue when he/she feels positively, while an issue dominates a respondent when he/she feels negatively. Given two issues, a transitivity of this dominance is often coveted since it installs predictability: one’s attitude towards one topic will carry information about his/her attitude towards the other. In this work, using data from a recent Bentley-Gallup study surveying 5835 individuals and the mathematics of Guttman outliers, we test whether - and how intensely - this transitivity persists among sections of the population (partitioned by politics, age, and gender) through observations such as very conservative young men who believe that businesses should take a stance on political candidates are extremely likely to have checked a company’s political endorsements before buying a product. We show how groups that differ on one (of three) demographic detail fall on opposite ends of the predictability spectrum. Topics such as businesses’ involvement with political candidates, climate change, international conflicts, or DEI issues function well in a predictive mix, potentially helping most to infer how respondents would feel about other opinion or action items.
This study examines the evolution of research policies and practices in Pakistani universities following the establishment of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in 2002 to regulate Pakistan's higher education sector. While these reforms have significantly increased academic publications, they have sparked debate on their impact on the broader academic landscape and the future of scientific research. This study investigates HEC’s publication-centric policies and their influence on the research culture within Pakistani universities, with a particular focus on the implications for the higher education sector as perceived by faculty members. Followed by a series of interviews, a survey was conducted from 102 academics, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative analysis, suggests that the singular focus on publication quantity in faculty evaluation and career progression foster unintended consequences, including faculty dissatisfaction and unethical practices. These findings raise questions on higher education's future in Pakistan and offer insights for policymakers, university leaders, and accreditation bodies, underscoring the need for policies that encourage a more holistic and ethical research culture in higher education.
Regional inequalities in Europe are closely linked to spatial mobility patterns that concentrate human capital and opportunities in metropolitan regions while accelerating decline elsewhere. The ongoing green and digital transitions introduce new drivers of regional attractiveness that may either reinforce or rebalance these patterns. This paper presents the MOBI-TWIN project, which reconceptualises mobility as a societal outcome of changing regional attractiveness under twin transition conditions. MOBI-TWIN introduces a new framework combining individual-level evidence on mobility intentions, values, and digital practices with regional-level indicators capturing economic structures, digital readiness, and environmental conditions across EU regions. Methodologically, the project adopts a multi-layer framework. At the individual level, it analyses how environmental values, and openness to digital work reshape mobility decisions beyond traditional socio-economic determinants. At the regional level, it develops a multidimensional Regional Attractiveness Index integrating traditional, digital, and green dimensions to capture regions’ adaptive capacity and exposure to transition risks. These components are embedded in a harmonised, multi-source dataset that supports comparative analysis and policy-relevant modelling. The results show mobility outcomes depend on regional adaptation, and MOBI-TWIN informs place-based policies for cohesion and socially just green and digital transitions across Europe today. Highlighting that mobility outcomes depend on regional adaptation to the green and digital transitions, MOBI-TWIN aims to inform place-based policies for cohesion and socially just twin transition across Europe.
This study provides a sustainable Napier-Biofertilizer-Dairy circularity for rural India. Small-scale dairy farming households in rural West Bengal have annual income below the international poverty line. The issue is further exacerbated in central West Bengal, where high chemical fertilizer-use intensity has leached micronutrient from red soils, leading to organic carbon content falling well-below the internationally accepted 2% level to 0.25%. This has increased prices of cattle fodder, leading to dairy farmers incurring losses against current market prices. Through an innovative model that incorporates drought-resistant Napier cultivation (at 14–16% protein content and 33% fiber content), increased organic-matter cow dung-based biofertilizer (>500 million/lit) and higher nutritional-value organic milk, we elucidate how economic upliftment of impoverished farmers can occur. Our findings indicate that biofertilizer-based soil rejuvenation has improved the organic content to 0.95% and projected to increase till 2% within three years, that directly improves yield of Napier (up to 800 tons/acre), Moringa and banana cultivation significantly. Small-scale dairy farmers can profit at least Rs. 25/lit by reducing fodder expenditure, with simultaneous maintenance of public health from adulterant-free organic milk. The demonstrated impacts not only create opportunities for sustainable rural industries, but also has the potential to improve severely degraded soils and simultaneously benefit public and cattle health. Data availability The authors confirm that all data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. Furthermore, all publicly available datasets were used as primary data in this article. The corresponding author may be contacted in case of any clarification/discrepancy.
In climate-vulnerable regions of Bangladesh, smallholder farmers face escalating threats from salinity intrusion and drought. This study evaluates the societal impacts of an intervention that promoted household vermicomposting adoption through training and resource provision. A mixed-methods approach was employed, integrating six years (2017–2022) of longitudinal data from 240 households across 12 climate-vulnerable villages (8 drought-prone and 4 salinisation-affected) in Bangladesh. Quantitative data on production and income were analyzed statistically, while 12 focus group discussions and 16 key informant interviews provided qualitative insights into socio-economic impacts and shifting values. Household vermicomposting significantly enhanced economic resilience, social capital, and ecological awareness from 2017 to 2022. Annual income increased 8.1-fold across all households, with drought-prone and salinity-affected regions achieving 8-fold and 8.3-fold growth, respectively. Beyond economic gains, the intervention fostered robust social networks: 85 % of households engaged in knowledge-sharing, 78 % expanded their market connections, and 12 informal cooperatives emerged. A profound shift in farmers' values occurred, with prioritization of "soil health" and "food safety" rising from 15 % to 59 %, while chemical fertilizer use decreased by 64 %. Qualitative data revealed strong community-driven demand for safe food, reflecting a transition from chemical dependence to agroecological practices.
Artificial intelligence can advance the Sustainable Development Goals, yet its societal impact depends on equitable, responsible, context-sensitive adoption. Across higher education, fragmented or restrictive policies, limited stakeholder engagement, and unclear guidance can suppress legitimate use and widen inequities. This article synthesises two empirical studies of ChatGPT adoption among Dutch higher-education students. Study 1, an eight-month longitudinal panel (n = 222), shows that declining use is predicted by reduced trust, lower perceived behavioural control, and heightened emotional creepiness. Study 2, a cross-sectional survey (n = 355) extending meta-UTAUT, finds that anthropomorphism, trust, and design novelty shape attitudes and intentions, while institutional policy negatively moderates the intention-use link, indicating that restrictive governance can deter engagement. The evidence supports SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and SDG 16 (Strong Institutions) and yields actionable recommendations to implement transparent, proportionate rules, build targeted AI literacy, minimise emotional discomfort, and embed safeguards that limit misuse. Grounded in Responsible Research and Innovation, the article positions universities as settings for testing governance models that balance innovation with educational integrity and inclusion, and unveils an impact pathway from institutional levers to short-, medium-, and long-term societal outcomes, informing policymakers and institutional leaders on responsible AI integration.
Lack of access to clean water and energy is a major challenge globally, especially in remote areas of developing nations. Such areas present unique challenges that prevent the supply of treated water and access to the national electricity grid. This is mainly due to difficult terrains, long distances and sparse population distribution. To address this challenge and improve access to clean water and energy, the use of point of use (PoU) systems is a viable solution. The present study presents important PoU systems, their performance and societal impacts. The use of locally available materials, low cost, ease of use and maintenance are key benefits of PoU systems. In addition, the use of PoU systems enables communities to take proactive steps in their empowerment and to find alternative solutions to the challenges they face. Notable societal impacts of PoU systems include improved public health, economic empowerment, environmental conservation and increased social equity. However, challenges such as social stigma, inadequate training and lack of maintenance need to be overcome. The increasing awareness and acceptance of PoU systems makes them a crucial contributor in attaining sustainable development goals 3, 6 and 7, especially among the most vulnerable and underprivileged in society.
This paper examines the Citizens' Economic Council on the Cost of Living (CEC), focusing on the societal impacts arising from the project and its relationship to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The CEC was a deliberative process designed to test whether deliberative mini publics can meaningfully inform complex economic policy decisions. It addressed the overall question: "How should UK government respond to the cost-of-living crisis through fiscal policy?". 39 citizens participated in six online workshops between March and April 2023, with sessions combining expert presentations, scenario-driven deliberation, microsimulation modelling, and household personas, so as to make complex fiscal policy trade-offs accessible to non-expert participants. The project’s principal societal impact was to show that non-specialists can successfully contribute to the economic dimensions of policy formation when given appropriate time and suitable tools. It provided a replicable model with was subsequently used to structure citizen deliberation over economic trade-offs in UK climate policy.
Despite growing interest in circular economy (CE) strategies, Global North research and policy frameworks are often applied to the Global South without adaptation. This limits understanding of how to design inclusive CE transitions that reflect the socioeconomic realities of countries in the Global South. This study addresses this gap by assessing factors shaping waste management systems and formulating context-specific recommendations. The study follows a three-stage approach. First, it reviews Colombian waste legislation to identify long-term policy drivers and their implications for CE reforms. Second, it compares Brazil and Colombia to assess the integration of informal waste pickers into formal systems. Third, it evaluates structural barriers across the circular value chain by analyzing material flows, actor configurations, and technological gaps. Findings show that CE transitions are constrained by fragmented policies, underdeveloped infrastructure, and weak coordination between formal and informal sectors. Although inclusion models have progressed in Brazil and Colombia, challenges in scaling and institutional continuity persist. Furthermore, informal reuse and repair practices remain undervalued, despite their significant contributions to environmental and economic resilience. This study provides a context-sensitive diagnosis and proposes policy directions to support inclusive CE transitions aligned with local realities in the Global South.
The Enhancing Science Education through International Collaboration (ESEIC) project addresses persistent shortcomings in STEM education by establishing interdisciplinary, student-led hubs that connect universities and communities across the UK, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan. ESEIC projects are co-designed with local stakeholders and aligned with key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), enabling students to develop transferable skills, foster a sense of belonging, and engage in meaningful, community-relevant research. This paper outlines the societal importance of ESEIC, describes its participatory methodology, and reflects on early findings from pilot projects including transnational collaboration and digital infrastructure for university–community dialogue. It demonstrates how inclusive, interdisciplinary, and community-embedded educational models can advance equity, engagement and global cooperation in higher education.
Human wellbeing depends on healthy ecosystems, yet many environmental and public health approaches emphasize damage reduction rather than how ecosystems adapt to variability and disturbance. In this paper, we present an integrated framework for assessing ecosystem health based on three complementary dimensions: ecosystem integrity, criticality, and antifragility. Integrity describes deviations from minimally disturbed reference conditions and provides a spatial diagnosis of ecosystem state. Criticality captures ecosystem dynamics by characterizing the balance between stability and adaptability, while antifragility evaluates whether ecosystems simply resist disturbances or improve their functioning through adaptive responses. Together, these dimensions extend conventional resilience-based assessments and offer a broader perspective on ecosystem health. We discuss the societal relevance of this framework in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals and the concept of a safe operating space for humanity, highlighting links between ecosystem health, public health, inequality, and long-term sustainability. Drawing on empirical work in terrestrial ecosystems and the human gut microbiota, we illustrate how similar systemic principles operate across biological scales. To address emerging risks at the human–environment interface, we introduce the Pandemics Prism as a conceptual tool for understanding how interacting ecological, social, and institutional processes shape pandemic vulnerability and potential pathways for risk reduction.
