Entry points for driving systemic change toward a more sustainable future

Achieving inclusive human development within planetary boundaries is an urgent and complex sustainability challenge. Despite growing interest in sustainability transitions and transformations, existing guidance on how to effectively catalyze systemic change remains fragmented, limiting progress in research and practice. A clear synthesis is needed to integrate diverse knowledge and guide transformative action. Here, we present an integrated framework of nine theoretically informed and empirically grounded analytical lenses called entry points through which systemic change can be understood, initiated, and sustained. The entry points we found are diverse and focus on momentum building, the co-development of integrated pathways to desirable futures, and the practical operationalization of change across sectors and scales. By bridging theory with practice, they offer a shared language and structure for understanding transformative processes and facilitate knowledge exchange between cases. This can eventually support more coherent policy design and enhance capacity of decision-makers to shape integrated sustainability agendas.