Operationalising positive tipping points towards global sustainability

Non-Technical Summary Transforming towards global sustainability requires a dramatic acceleration of current progress. Hence there is growing interest in finding ‘positive tipping points’ at which small interventions can trigger self-reinforcing feedbacks that accelerate systemic change. Examples have recently been seen in power generation, personal transport, and lighting. But how to identify positive tipping points that have yet to occur? We synthesise theory and examples to provide initial guidelines for creating enabling conditions, sensing when a system can be positively tipped, who can trigger it, and how they can trigger it. All of us can play a part in triggering positive tipping points.