A leading edge facet of the transition to sustainability is the development, implementation and extended use of new technologies and related system innovations. The two open issues, volumes 45 and 49, of Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability journal, are focused on a set of review pieces that evaluate a broad range of these emerging technologies and innovations and document how they are influencing the capacity to achieve the world’s sustainability goals. The advance of these varied new approaches and methods collectively present a period of dramatic transformation that illustrate the dawning of a new era of technological advance much in the same way that the advent of the steam engine, mechanization and mass production changed everyday life, economic structure, and human–environment interaction in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. These technologies and innovations connect with fundamental production and management questions within a range of carbon emission reduction technologies, land management and agricultural production strategies, data and information management, and material flows and logistics. For each, their current status and impact, relevant access and equity issues, and prospects for future development are discussed. It is our hope that the two issues will help to provoke new research questions and collaborative efforts around the world and shed light on future direction of sustainable technological interventions.

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