Transformative change toward a more sustainable human–environment relationship requires addressing both the direct and indirect drivers of anthropogenic environmental degradation. An increasingly recognized leverage point for sustainability is human values, which to a large part underlie human behaviors, institutions, and social norms [1,2]. Sustainability scientists have advocated for fostering and mobilizing broad values (guiding principles and life goals) and specific values (reflecting the importance of nature) that promote nature connectedness and shape human–environment interactions [1]. However, critical questions remain about the mechanisms that underpin shifts to values that foster human and non-human wellbeing within planetary boundaries (hereafter, sustainability-aligned values) [3–5]. We suggest that a complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective can provide important insights into how value change co-evolves with transformative change toward sustainability.

The foundation for values to drive sustainability transformations is that values are not static; they evolve in response to various factors [4]. Sustainability literature has started to consider values as a part of social-ecological systems [2,6,7]. Yet, while social-ecological systems are commonly understood as CAS, the CAS perspective on values (Fig 1) remains underutilized in sustainability research. The CAS theory states that societies, ecosystems, and social-ecological systems consist of diverse interconnected elements that adapt and evolve in response to interactions with each other and the environment [8,9]. CAS are characterized by features such as emergence (patterns and behaviors arising from interactions), self-organization (the development of order without central control), feedbacks (amplifying and stabilizing loops), nonlinearity (disproportionate responses), and uncertainty [9]. As CAS features fundamentally influence our ability to advance the sustainability of environmental management, underutilizing the CAS perspective in values research risks overlooking or suppressing the transformative role of values in sustainability.

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Fig 1. Research agenda for complex adaptive systems (CAS)-based research on how value change co-evolves with transformative change toward sustainability.

Our suggestions reflect key entry points to CAS thinking. The three panels (understand, explore, take further) organize key entry points into CAS thinking in values research, providing an agenda structure that complements the perspectives discussed in the text. In the third panel, we encourage developing additional ways to utilize the CAS perspective. Three dots indicate an open space for future research ideas. Interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and respect for diverse worldviews drive this agenda forward and underpin all ideas presented.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000195.g001

The CAS lens provides three important research perspectives for understanding and fostering value changes toward sustainability. First, given the role of values in guiding behaviors, decision-making, and institutions, it is critical to investigate how values shape and respond to the different stages of sustainability transformations (Fig 1: suggestions A, B, C, E). Values are not mere drivers of sustainability transformations (i.e., people’s values shift and people then translate the sustainability-aligned values into action [cf. 4]) but adaptive system elements interacting with changing social-ecological conditions [see also 5] [3,4,7]. Thus, diverse values may emerge, stabilize, or erode as systems approach critical thresholds and undergo transitions. For example, landscape simplification (major land use change) can erode certain values, such as cultural identity, by disrupting human interactions with the local environment [10]. The CAS view thus also suggests that value responses to transformative action can influence the course of the transformation. For example, perceived injustice in sustainability action can lead to the abrupt prioritization of values such as local biosphere stewardship and fairness over global sustainability goals in decision-making (e.g., local opposition to wind farms [11]). Moreover, value changes can be unlinear or lag behind transformative changes in social-ecological conditions [4 and references within], potentially leading to unexpected outcomes. West and colleagues [7] called after tools to describe processes by which values emerge and change in social-ecological systems. The CAS perspective offers a powerful conceptual basis for this, as it enables framing values as adaptive elements embedded in systems and provides an advanced theory on system transformations.

Second, we urge a deeper exploration of how interactions between values and ecosystems can create or hinder a self-sustaining foundation for sustainability (Fig 1: D, G). CAS can exist in multiple states, each stabilized by feedback mechanisms. Local communities’ conservation efforts and sustainable environmental practices, e.g., enhance ecosystem states and foster relational values, such as care and a sense of interconnectedness between humans and non-human nature [12,13]. Such a mechanism exemplifies a reinforcing feedback that can accelerate a shift toward sustainability [12]. If specific feedbacks become dominant in a CAS, they can drive the system to transition and stabilize in a new, potentially more sustainable state. Similarly, the emergence of nature’s disvalues, i.e., values that lead to undesirable environmental or societal ends (e.g., decrease in sustainable practices, severe human-wildlife conflicts) [14], can drive the system toward a more unsustainable state. Altogether, investigating the feedbacks that reinforce or counteract the shift to sustainability-aligned values enables designing interventions that amplify such reinforcing or balancing mechanisms.

Finally, we recommend utilizing the knowledge on system structures that have been identified as generic indicators of how systems will respond to perturbation or intervention (Fig 1: A, E, F, G). Research on diverse types of CAS shows that structural attributes of CAS provide important clues (common principles) about system behaviors and resilience [8]. For instance, the connectivity and homogeneity of the system elements indicate how widespread or contained a system response is to a perturbation [8]. Such CAS principles have been used to investigate the complex pathways through which environmental changes and policies may impact local values, as well as to identify high-priority values or ecosystem elements (e.g., specific species) for just environmental management [13]. In essence, knowledge of the common principles that hold for any CAS implies that we can interpret behaviors of the systems that values are embedded in, even if we do not have all the details of the underlying mechanisms of the particular system [8,13].

As outlined here, increased adoption of the CAS perspective provides important research avenues for understanding and accelerating value change toward sustainability. Systems thinking may not align with all worldviews and disciplinary paradigms. Still, its integrative approach helps bridge research silos and advance interdisciplinarity. Ultimately, this article aims to inspire more researchers to explore values as embedded in CAS, creating new opportunities to drive progress toward sustainability.