Emergency narratives are important, yet new thinking and collective action works best with narratives that encourage, inspire, and show pathways to future possibilities. We need a dose of a ‘Yes We Can’ mentality to design and implement collaborative transformative change processes. Sustainability transformations are difficult and long, thus we need emotionally compelling goals and roadmaps with a clear narrative to create resonance and commitment to drive change together.

To bring out the best in people, invigorate the human spirit, and create tangible results in complex collaborations we must build well-organized engagement processes. We might regenerate organizations, improving their governance mechanisms, or foster local and global transformation networks. It is by bringing stakeholders together in a structure that enables a culture of collective action and by fostering a result-oriented partnerships that we transform what seemed impossible transformative change into reality. How can we leverage the potential of networks for dynamic change?

Human inventiveness is unlimited, and we need learn how to tap into this infinite potential. We can do this by connecting transformative change with emerging innovation because it is through technological, social, digital, and scientific breakthroughs that we create and strengthen pathways to sustainability. By putting innovation at the core of transformative change processes we not only nurture emerging ideas and amplify pioneering approaches but we make it possible to integrate collaboration and input from various stakeholders, this moving innovation from being an isolated improvement or a brilliant invention into a tool at the service of the future of humankind.

There is one rule that always applies: what gets measured gets improved. Metrics are not an end in itself, but they focus our attention and generate awareness. Yet facts and figures, even well-grounded in science and evidence, are not enough to generate change by themselves: they need to resonate with people and emotionally connect with our humanity. Appropriate metrics can empower us at multiple levels to shift our own thinking and behavior, and to see and measure progress happening. In transformative change metrics function as feedback systems for iterative learning.

The purpose of governance in stewarding sustainability transformations is to leverage collective intelligence and accelerate collective sense-making that furthers behavior change. Governance refers to the multiple ways in which we collectively steward transformative change in our societies, local communities, and global issues allowing us to move towards agreed-upon goals or away from danger. To overcome complex societal or global challenges we need therefore a governance structure that factors prominently multi-stakeholder collaboration and structured dialogue among the various groups that compose our societies.

The role of guiding regulations and resource allocations is to safeguards life’s wholeness and integrity at all levels. Without setting rules transformations to sustainability do not move forward. Guiding regulations are as powerful as deliberate interventions in our hands to decide the way resources are allocated, access is managed, taxes are distributed, or investments are focused. But, as important, are voluntary frameworks and peer-reviewed standards that guide the change in our collective behavior. To enable transformative change, we must learn how to combine voluntary and binding agreements.