Transitions towards sustainability are urgently needed to address the interconnected challenges of economic development, ecological integrity, and social justice, from local to global scales. Around the world, collaborative science-society initiatives are forming to conduct experiments in support of sustainability transitions. Such experiments, if carefully designed, provide significant learning opportunities for making progress on transition efforts. Yet, there is no broadly applicable evaluative scheme available to capture this critical information across a large number of cases, and to guide the design of transition experiments. To address this gap, the article develops such a scheme, in a tentative form, drawing on evaluative research and sustainability transitions scholarship, alongside insights from empirical cases. We critically discuss the scheme's key features of being generic, comprehensive, operational, and formative. Furthermore, we invite scholars and practitioners to apply, reflect and further develop the proposed tentative scheme – making evaluation and experiments objects of learning.

The production and consumption of goods is a global phenomenon that has significant social and environmental impacts and challenges. In 2016, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that 25 million people were victims of forced labor. Forced labor is defined as “work that is involuntary and subject to penalty.” It is a subset of modern slavery, and is a complex problem that affects all three pillars of sustainability. Fair labor, on the other hand, is voluntary, requires fair compensation, and is free from penalty. With one in five jobs tied to global supply chains, it is vital that companies and organizations are committed to sustainability within the supply chain (Thorlakson et al., 2018). One critical aspect of this commitment includes a focus on fair labor practices.

ASU’s Trademark Licensing Department currently utilizes third-party vendors to verify that any licensed product, those marked with an ASU logo or trademark, have been sourced and produced under fair labor conditions. Our project focuses on steps that can be taken to elevate fair labor practices across the ASU supply chain for both licensed and unlicensed products. The Fair Labor Solutions Team has developed two primary deliverables: an overarching report and a fair labor problem identification presentation with a script to act as an education tool for ASU staff. The report contains the following elements: a landscape analysis of fair labor, ASU’s current procurement practices, a collection of exemplary case studies, and a tiered vision towards transformational change. Our team understands that ensuring fair labor throughout the ASU supply chain is not a linear process. The goal of our deliverables is to offer a strong foundation for the university's transition to sustainable procurement.

Extreme heat, a widespread environmental hazard, is experienced disproportionately by historically disinvested and marginalized communities in Tempe. The City of Tempe has thus identified the importance of preparing the City’s youth to move into positions of power within the community to prepare for a future of rising temperatures and climate uncertainty, specifically as it relates to intergenerational community resilience. The City’s long-term Cool Kids, Cool Places, Cool Futures project plans to accelerate the City’s existing climate action by activating and empowering local youth as change agents in the co-creation of cooler, more equitable, and healthier futures. This MSUS project aims to develop strategies for the youth and the city that work together to advocate for and implement youth-designed and neighborhood-focused climate action projects in the Escalante and Victory Acres neighborhoods. The envisioned solution for this project is the creation of a dual strategy to connect youths’ visions for the future of Tempe with the City’s capacity (resources, funding, etc.) to adequately implement them. To complete this, the MSUS team facilitated a visioning workshop for local youth at McClintock High School to brainstorm potential climate action projects. As a result of this workshop, an action guide was then developed by the MSUS team with strategies to help jumpstart these youth-designed projects, highlighting the necessary social and physical assets and infrastructures needed for the projects to succeed. In turn, the City received a report outlining how they can best support the youth in the realization of these action projects. Both of these strategy guides will be used in parallel to begin the implementation of the climate action projects in the Fall of 2022.

This project is creating a non-profit green building organization called AZ Build Green Coalition. There is currently no statewide neutral organization for knowledge sharing about various green building initiatives throughout Arizona. Multiple municipalities in the state are now interested in and starting to execute green building initiatives through varied processes. Yet, each municipality is remaking the wheel and select green building champions in each city usually lead these efforts without a lot of funding or capacity. A central source for knowledge sharing and education would be instrumental in facilitating faster and more efficient movements with green building initiatives and codes. For example, the city of Scottsdale is in the process of being the first municipality in the nation to adopt the newest version of the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). This project has been involved in and aided in that initiative. The city of Tempe has initiated three IgCC 2018 pilot projects. Other municipalities in the state are interested in the IgCC and several have previously adopted it on a voluntary basis. Sharing resources and code approval barriers through a central forum would be beneficial for faster progress and also navigating the political barriers more effectively. The non-profit aims to assist with this collaboration and future high performance building initiatives through tools such as: public presentations, a central sharable document repository, an online presence, and other collaborative tools.

ASU’s waste diversion goal is 90% by the fiscal year 2025 and will require collaboration across many departments and programs to be successful. Reducing plastic use, especially single-use plastic, is critical in reaching 90% waste diversion in the supply chain. To reduce supply chain single-use plastics, ASU will need the cooperation of suppliers on efforts like piloting plastic free packaging programs, packaging take back programs, alternative packaging opportunities, or promoting alternative products that contain little-to-no single-use plastic. Creating a proposed approach through identifying strategic external partners, a high-level approach to implementation, and obstacles will impact how future goals and policies are set. Determining impact and added value of the project will help cultivate support from leadership, internal stakeholders, and suppliers. The project focus will include multiple deliverables, but the final output will be a timeline that maps out what plastic streams to eliminate and when to help ASU reach their waste diversion goals. It begins with “low-hanging fruit” like straws and plastic bags and ends with a university free from all non-essential single-use plastic.

Underserved communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change, and current inequities present in our emissions-heavy transportation system only exacerbate these burdens. As of 2019, transportation accounted for 29% of total GHG emissions in the United States. Electric Vehicles (EVs) present an opportunity to lower emissions associated with transportation, as EVs emit zero tailpipe emissions. We define electric vehicles as cars, bikes, scooters, buses, and rail systems. As transitions to EVs occur, action can be taken to adopt more equitable practices within the transportation space, specifically in historically underserved communities.

In partnership with The City of Phoenix’s EV Department, and with additional support from the Housing Department, the EV Changers team developed a transportation-oriented survey to be distributed to the Edison-Eastlake Community (EEC) in Phoenix. Efforts to understand the EEC’s needs will lend to more efficient, connected, and accessible transportation in the upcoming transportation electrification movement.

The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, aims to provide vital information for planning, implementing and evaluating interventions aimed at preventing childhood obesity in five ew Jersey municipalities: Camden, Newark, New Brunswick, Trenton, and Vineland. These five communities are being supported by RWJF's New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids program to plan and implement policy and environmental change strategies to prevent childhood obesity.

Effective interventions for addressing childhood obesity require community specific information on who is most at risk and on contributing factors that can be addressed through tailored interventions that meet the needs of the community.

Using a comprehensive research study, the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University is working collaboratively with the State Program Office for New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids and the five communities to address these information needs. The main components of the study include:

• A household survey of 1700 families with 3 -18 year old children

• De-identified heights and weights data from public school districts

• Assessment of the food and physical activity environments using objective data

Data books and maps based on the results of the study are being shared with the community coalitions in the five communities to help them plan their interventions.

The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, aims to provide vital information for planning, implementing and evaluating interventions aimed at preventing childhood obesity in five New Jersey municipalities: Camden, Newark, New Brunswick, Trenton, and Vineland.

These five communities are being supported by RWJF's New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids program to plan and implement policy and environmental change strategies to prevent childhood obesity.

Effective interventions for addressing childhood obesity require community-specific information on who is most at risk and on contributing factors that can be addressed through tailored interventions that meet the needs of the community.

Using a comprehensive research study, the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University is working collaboratively with the State Program Office for New Jersey Partnership for Healthy I<ids and the five communities to address these information needs. The main components of the study include:

• A household survey of 1700 families with 3 -18 year old children

• De-identified heights and weights data from public school districts

• Assessment of the food and physical activity environments using objective data

Data books and maps based on the results of the study are being shared with the community coalitions in the five communities to help them plan their interventions.