This focus area considers the ways in which environmental concerns are framed and articulated when data and information technologies are involved. The number, sophistication, and use of information technologies are constantly increasing. And their integration into environmental practice, communication, and governance will further expand and intensify in the coming years. How does data enable environmental knowledge in specific ways and at the expense of others? How does this differ between different digital platforms or across information infrastructures?

This focus area places the role of emotions in environmental communication and sustainability transitions at the centre. Climate change and biodiversity loss, as some of the most defining issues of our time, are known to cause a range of emotional responses, from anxiety and fear to hopelessness. How do individuals and groups deal with such emotions? How can social institutions play a role in negotiating individual responses and create a space for shared meaning-making and reflection in the face of serious threats to life on earth?

Scientific knowledge is increasingly contested today in manifold ways – and perhaps nowhere as much as in the field of environmental policy and sustainability transitions. This focus area sheds light on such contestations by an emerging anti-scientific attitude and the spread of post-truth relativism. On this basis, we examine the interconnections between knowledge and action. What knowledge can form the basis of individual and collective action? How can environmental communication catalyse action to address environmental challenges?

This focus area investigates the meaning and function of collaborative governance in environmental politics against the backdrop of mounting tensions and resistance around sustainability transformations. A pivotal concern is to study how resistance and tensions affect power relations, which in turn shape perceptions about the legitimacy and viability of collaborative governance processes in the environmental field.

This focus area centres around nature-based transformations, such as regenerative agriculture, continuous-cover forestry and the restoration of wetlands. These initiatives envisage new, more sustainable futures, whilst at the same time putting them in practice. We investigate emerging, locally anchored land-use narratives as communicative acts that seek to reconnect people and nature to foster meaningful and responsible practices.