Professor Dr. Johan Rockström

Johan Rockström is one of the world's leading scientists on global sustainability, climate change, resilience and global water resources. With over than 150 research publications, his work spans fields ranging from applied land and water management to global environmental policy.  Since 2018 he has served as Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor of Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. Prior to his current roles, Rockström co-founded and directed the Stockholm Resilience Centre from 2004 until 2018.

Professor Rockström's research focuses on the critical intersections between human society and natural ecosystems, seeking solutions to ensure sustainable development while preserving the stability of Earth's systems. A key aspect of his work is the concept of planetary boundaries, which he co-developed with a team of scientists in 2009. This framework identifies nine Earth system processes, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification, that are essential for maintaining a livable and resilient planet. The planetary boundaries framework has become a cornerstone of global sustainability discussions, offering a science-based approach for policymakers and businesses to operate within safe environmental limits.

Professor Rockström co-chairs several international initiatives that seek to advance and synthesize the cutting-edge Earth system science into actionable recommendations for policymakers.  These initiatives include the Earth Commission, the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and the Planetary Boundary Science Initiative. He is also a key figure in global sustainability movements, such as the Stockholm Food Forum EAT, which focuses on transforming the global food system for sustainability.

By synthesizing climate modeling, Earth system science, and socio-economic analyses, Rockström’s work informs decision-making at the highest levels. His contributions to understanding global sustainability challenges have made him a trusted advisor to numerous international institutions, including the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the European Union. His policy advocacy has played a vital role in shaping international agreements, such as the Paris Agreement on climate change and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. He has also worked as a consultant to national governments and corporations, offering insights into sustainable transitions and climate risk mitigation.

In recognition of his contributions to environmental science and policy, Rockström has received numerous awards, including the *German Environmental Prize*, the *Stockholm Water Prize*, the *Prince Albert II of Monaco Climate Change Award* and most recently the *Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement* and the *Virchow Prize towards Health for all* for his contributions to environmental science and policy.

Rockström is also a prominent figure in public discourse, regularly appearing in media, conferences, and international forums to communicate science’s urgent call for systemic change to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. His TED talks have garnered over seven millions views, and his popular science books, including Big World, Small Planet, Breaking Boundaries, and The Human Quest, have brought complex environmental issues to the public’s attention, encouraging a shift toward more sustainable management of planetary resources.

While Planetary Boundary science has advanced tremendously over the past decades, we still lack a deep understanding of the intricate, yet pivotal connections between many biological and physical functions of the Earth system. In 2023, PIK and its partners, led by Johan Rockström, launched the Planetary Boundaries Science Initiative (PBScience) to improve both our ability to model how the Earth system evolves under the pressure of human activity, as well as our ability to measure the state of the Earth system at a high temporal resolution.

A key output of PBScience is the annual Planetary Boundary Health Check, conceived and reviewed by a diverse international scientific and stakeholder community, and employing cutting-edge Earth-system and tipping-point modelling, ambitious whole-Earth monitoring, and exploring artificial-intelligence-based big-data analytics. In September 2024, the PBScience team launched the first edition of the annual Planetary Health Check Report.

Earth Commission

Johan Rockström is Co-Chair of the Earth Commission, one of four components of the Global Commons Alliance. The Earth Commission is an international and cross-disciplinary group of leading scientists. This group is tasked with synthesizing the latest science to define conditions for a healthy planet, informing the setting of science-based targets, to help maintain Earth’s life support systems: climate, land, biodiversity, freshwater and oceans.

Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW)

Co-chaired by Johan Rockström, the GCEW is tasked with presenting the evidence and the pathways for changes in policy, business approaches and global collaboration to support climate and water justice, sustainability, and food-energy-water security.

The first report of the GCEW, Turning the Tide: A Call to Collective Action, was published in 2023 and draws attention to the interconnectedness of the global water crisis with climate change and loss of biodiversity. The report articulates 7 goals for transforming the economics and restructuring the governance of water towards a sustainable and just water future. In 2024, the GCEW published a new report, Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good, stating the global water cycle is increasingly out of balance – with consequences for the world economy and humanity.

Tipping Point Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP)

Both in the context of defining Planetary Boundaries and the preconditions for a safe future on Earth, understanding the dynamics of tipping elements is crucial for developing effective strategies to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of global environmental change. TIPMIP, initiated with the support of Johan Rockström, is an international intercomparison project that aims to systematically advance our understanding of tipping dynamics in various Earth system components.

TIPMIP is coordinated by the Earth Resilience Science Unit (ERSU), a joint venture between PIK and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA).

EAT-Lancet commission

In 2019, the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health published the first set of global scientific targets for healthy diets and set forth six environmental boundaries for food production, flagging the disproportionately large impact that food has on planetary boundaries. The Commission showed that feeding 10 billion people a healthy diet within safe planetary boundaries by 2050 is both possible and necessary. The adoption of the ‘Planetary Health Diet’ would help avoid severe environmental degradation and prevent approximately 11 million premature adult deaths annually.

Building on the findings of the first publication, EAT-Lancet 2.0, due to be published in October, 2025, will accelerate progress and contribute to the 2030 agenda by including several new elements. A greater focus will be placed on diversity and the adaptation of regional and local diets, food justice and social food system goals. 

Top 10 peer-reviewed publications

See below to download a complete list.

Rockström, Johan, Louis Kotzé, Svetlana Milutinović, Frank Biermann, Victor Brovkin, Jonathan Donges, Jonas Ebbesson, et al. 2024. ‘The Planetary Commons: A New Paradigm for Safeguarding Earth-Regulating Systems in the Anthropocene’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (5): e2301531121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301531121.

Richardson, Katherine, Will Steffen, Wolfgang Lucht, Jørgen Bendtsen, Sarah E. Cornell, Jonathan F. Donges, Markus Drüke, et al. 2023. ‘Earth beyond Six of Nine Planetary Boundaries’. Science Advances 9 (37): eadh2458. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458.

Rockström, Johan, Joyeeta Gupta, Dahe Qin, Steven J. Lade, Jesse F. Abrams, Lauren S. Andersen, David I. Armstrong McKay, et al. 2023. ‘Safe and Just Earth System Boundaries’. Nature 619 (7968): 102–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06083-8.

Sureth, Michael, Matthias Kalkuhl, Ottmar Edenhofer, and Johan Rockström. 2023. ‘A Welfare Economic Approach to Planetary Boundaries’: Jahrbücher Für Nationalökonomie Und Statistik, March. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2022-0022.

Armstrong McKay, David I., Arie Staal, Jesse F. Abrams, Ricarda Winkelmann, Boris Sakschewski, Sina Loriani, Ingo Fetzer, Sarah E. Cornell, Johan Rockström, and Timothy M. Lenton. 2022. ‘Exceeding 1.5°C Global Warming Could Trigger Multiple Climate Tipping Points’. Science 377 (6611). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7950.

Willett, Walter, Johan Rockström, Brent Loken, Marco Springmann, Tim Lang, Sonja Vermeulen, Tara Garnett, et al. 2019. ‘Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems’. The Lancet 393 (10170): 447–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4.

Steffen, Will, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, et al. 2018. ‘Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115 (33): 8252–59. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115.

Rockström, Johan, Owen Gaffney, Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. 2017. ‘A Roadmap for Rapid Decarbonization’. Science 355 (6331): 1269–71. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah3443.

Steffen, Will, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs, et al. 2015. ‘Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet’. Science 347 (6223): 1259855. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1259855.

Rockström, Johan, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton, et al. 2009. ‘A Safe Operating Space for Humanity’. Nature 461 (7263): 472–75. https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a.

Publications_Rockström.pdf — PDF document, 399 KB

     Roles

• Chief Scientist of Conservation International (https://www.conservation.org/)
• Chair of the Earth League (https://www.hzg.de/ms/earthleague/)
• Co-Chair of the Future Earth Advisory Committee (http://www.futureearth.org/)

• Chairman of the EAT Advisory Board (https://eatforum.org/)

     Memberships

• Member of the International Science Councils Global Commission on Science Missions for Sustainability
  
• Member of German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• Member of the European Investment Bank Advisory Group
• Chair of the International Advisory Board at the Stockholm Resilience Centre

• Selected Awards

• Virchow Prize (2024)
• Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2024)
• Tagesspiegel: TOP100 Heads of Berlin Science (2024)
• TIME100, most influential people in the world (2023)
• Inductee The Earth Hall of Fame KYOTO (2022)
• Laureate, Hillary Institute of International leadership (2017)
• French distinction Knight of the Legion of Honour (2016)
• Environmental Award (Deutscher Umweltpreis) (2015)
• International Cosmos Prize (2015)
• Zoological Society of London Award for Conservation Innovation (2015)
• The Woods Hole Research Center's Lawrence Huntington Environmental Prize (2014)
• Marsh Award for Climate Change Research, British Ecological Society (2013)
• Agronomist of the Year, Swedish Association of Professional Scientists (2013)
• Sweden’s Most Influential Person on the Environment, MiljöAktuellt (2012, 2013), and within the top 10 (2010, 2011, 2014)
• FOKUS magazine Swede of the Year (2009)

TED Talks

• Science Verdict (2024)
• 5 transformational policies for a prosperous and sustainable world (2018)
• How we can all become responsible stewards of Planet Earth (2013)
• Let the environment guide our development (2010)

Speaking Highlights

• Keynote at the Berlin Aviation Summit (04 June 2024, Transcript)
• Speaker at World Economic Forum Davos (2023)
• Speaker at re:publica (2019)
• Keynote at the PIK Conference IMPACTS WORLD (2017)
• Guest on Swedish radio show Sommar i P1

Films

• Breaking Boundaries (2021)
• Before the Flood (2016), together with Leonardo DiCaprio

Other

• Key lecturer in the well-received Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities massive open online course (MOOC) from SDG Academy