A framework describing limits to the impacts of human activities on the Earth system. Beyond these limits, the environment may not be able to self-regulate any longer. The framework is based on scientific evidence that human actions, especially those of industrialised societies since the Industrial Revolution, have become the main driver of global environmental change. The planetary boundaries delineate the “safe” operating space for the planet across nine different domains: biosphere integrity, climate change, land-system change, freshwater change, nutrient cycles, ocean acidification, aerosol pollution, ozone, and ‘novel entities’ (which includes pollutants like plastic).