Scaling out transformative changes through a living repository of hopeful initiatives

A range of collective efforts for biodiversity have emerged during the past century. Some initiatives show signs of global spreading, proving to be applicable, transferable, and adaptable to vastly different contexts and geographies. Examples of such globally relevant initiatives include nature conservation efforts or ecological restoration, and assigning greater rights for nature, all of which are becoming increasingly mainstream and globally prevalent. Other initiatives are more limited geographically and more specific but are recently gaining momentum. Examples include the application of policies and frameworks for biodiversity-positive economy and finance, nature-based health therapies, integration of biodiversity into education at all life stages, and into food systems. The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment explicitly calls for initiatives with transformative potential to be scaled out to other geographical contexts, in addition to be institutionalised in policy and rules and to be supported by shifts in paradigms and values. We pose the following questions: is scaling out a realistic pathway? What can we do to motivate transformative agents to persist in amplifying initiatives and resist against pushbacks? Leveraging on evidence of initiatives that have been scaled out globally in the past century, we propose a framework for enabling amplification of initiatives with transformative potential. We call for researchers and practitioners to jointly develop a living repository of such ”hopeful initiatives” with transformative potentials that evidently can spread globally. We argue that such initiatives represent a source of inspiration, which can provide lessons and strategies for future work. Our framework builds on theories of active hope from multiple disciplines, such as psychology, philosophy, and behavioral science, where agency and motivation are leveraged to face challenges that are systemic, persistent and pervasive. Along with the framework, we present its application for an ongoing research project ‘Hope Assessment’, which documents and analyses global evidence of collective human efforts to live in harmony with nature across eight major societal systems.