Smarter land use across 146 countries could lift climate, nature and incomes
A Science study of 146 countries finds smarter land use could add over 200bn tonnes CO2e of climate gains or $350bn in economic value.
Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels
Smarter land use could deliver large gains for the climate, biodiversity and the economy at the same time, according to a study of 146 countries published in “Science” on June 4, 2026. An interdisciplinary team led by the University of Minnesota found that most countries manage their land well inside what is feasible, leaving room to raise climate mitigation by over 200 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent, or net economic value by over $350 billion, without losing ground on other goals.
The team built what it calls a “sustainable landscape efficiency frontier” for each country. The frontier maps the best combinations a country could reach across five values: carbon storage and biodiversity on the environmental side, and crops, livestock and forestry on the economic side. Where current land use sits well below that frontier, the gap is the opportunity.
What smarter land use could deliver
The researchers integrated spatial biophysical and economic data with optimization methods to find each country’s frontier. The summed result across all 146 countries shows two headline possibilities, each achievable without a loss in the other objectives.
| Objective | Potential gain across 146 countries | Relative increase |
|---|---|---|
| Climate mitigation | over 200 billion tonnes CO2e | over 20% |
| Net economic value | over $350 billion | over 80% |
Source: Polasky et al., “Landscape efficiency frontiers for biodiversity, climate mitigation, and net economic value,” Science (June 4, 2026).
These are alternative maxima, not a single combined total: a country could push hard on carbon, on economic value, or on a balance of both, while holding biodiversity and the remaining goals steady. The scale of the relative increases is the point, because they show how far current land use sits from what the same land could support.
Where the gains come from
Two levers do most of the work. The first is land reallocation, including selective restoration of forest on highly productive land, which lifts carbon and biodiversity. The second is crop intensification, mainly in lower-income countries where yields are currently low, which raises economic value without clearing more natural land. The frontier weighs five dimensions together, so a change is only counted as a gain if it does not push another value down.
“We know we’re facing both a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis but, usually, the pushback against doing something about either is that it’s going to cost too much,” said lead author Stephen Polasky, a Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota. He said the study set out to show “there are ways where we can be more efficient and address climate and biodiversity without bankrupting people.” The framing echoes the case for innovation and sustainability through eco-efficiency, where better design lifts output and environmental performance together.
How the findings could be used
The team says the maps help governments and finance institutions direct money toward changes that meet national development goals and international climate and biodiversity commitments at once. NatCap TEEMs, the Minnesota group behind the work, has started country-level analyses with the World Bank to answer specific national questions. “This research proves that the supposed tradeoff between protecting nature and growing economies is false,” said Becky Chaplin-Kramer, Global Biodiversity Lead Scientist at World Wildlife Fund-US.
For the agricultural lever, the result lines up with evidence that sustainable agriculture can be profitable when yields rise on land already farmed, easing pressure to clear new ground. Practices grouped under regenerative agriculture point in the same direction, building soil and output without expanding the farmed footprint. The study connects these field-level gains to the wider targets set out in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
The authors note limits. Many ecosystem services and economic activities are not yet in the model, so the frontier is a floor for what better land use could achieve, not a ceiling. The work was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the University of Minnesota Fesler-Lampert Endowment and Institute on the Environment, the World Resources Institute and the World Bank.
About NatCap TEEMs
NatCap TEEMs, short for Natural Capital Alliance: The Earth-Economy Modelers, sits in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The group models the linked earth-economy system to inform decisions on sustainable development, and is part of the Natural Capital Alliance, the global partnership formerly known as the Natural Capital Project. Its work centres on showing where environmental and economic goals can be met together rather than traded off. The 146-country “Science” study extends that approach to a global scale, giving governments, lenders and investors a country-by-country picture of how much better land use could do for the climate, nature and national incomes at the same time.
Sources: Science; University of Minnesota / EurekAlert; University of Minnesota
Featured image: photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels (free Pexels license).
For more on this topic, see our explainer on how rewilding is playing out at Yellowstone and England’s Knepp Estate and our explainer on invasive species and the EU’s 114-species list.
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
