Physics of Sustainability: Cascades, Contagion and Tipping Points in Socio-Economic Systems

Sustainability transitions are increasingly understood not as the sum of individual choices but as collective phenomena emerging from interacting agents. Firms, consumers, investors, communities and institutions are linked through social, economic and digital networks, and a change in one part of the system can propagate, amplify or stall across it. From this perspective, the spread of sustainable behaviours, technologies and risks shows a natural correspondence with processes long studied in statistical physics: diffusion and contagion on networks, self-organisation, phase transitions and critical tipping points, where small perturbations can trigger abrupt system-level change.Sustainability research in management, economics and the social sciences has produced rich evidence on ESG adoption, green innovation and climate action. Yet most of it relies on individual-level or linear models that miss nonlinear feedback, network effects, cascading failures and emergent collective behaviour. Social physics offers powerful tools for exactly these phenomena, but their application to sustainability in organisations, markets and societies remains fragmented.The goal of this Research Topic is to advance the fundamental understanding and predictive power of physics-based approaches to sustainability dynamics in socio-economic systems. We seek to bring together researchers in social and statistical physics, complex systems, network science and computational social science with scholars in economics, management and sustainability research to address a central question: can the concepts and methods of physics explain, and help anticipate, how sustainability transitions emerge, accelerate, stall or reverse across interconnected socio-economic systems?Specific objectives include:• modelling the contagion and diffusion of sustainable behaviours, practices and technologies on social and multilayer networks• identifying tipping points, critical thresholds and early-warning signals of sustainability transitions• quantifying cascading failures and systemic risk in supply-chain, financial and ESG-related networks• understanding the emergence of cooperation and collective action in environmental and climate decision-making• linking microscopic agent interactions to macroscopic, system-level sustainability outcomes using empirical dataBy achieving these goals, this collection aims to bridge social physics and sustainability research, moving beyond descriptive, firm-level analyses toward quantitative models that explain and anticipate collective sustainability dynamics, giving researchers and policymakers a stronger basis for designing effective interventions.This Research Topic welcomes contributions that apply the tools of physics, complexity science and network theory to sustainability-related dynamics. Themes of interest include but are not limited to:• Contagion, diffusion and opinion dynamics of sustainable behaviours and green technologies• Tipping points, phase transitions and early-warning signals in socio-economic sustainability transitions• Cascading failures and systemic risk in supply-chain, financial and ESG networks• Evolutionary game theory and cooperation dynamics in collective climate and environmental action• Agent-based and mathematical models of green innovation, ESG adoption and circular-economy transitions• Empirical network analysis and data-driven studies of sustainability-related socio-economic systemsWe invite Original Research, Methods, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles. All contributions must apply methods from physics, complexity science or network theory, and demonstrate clear relevance to the system-level dynamics of sustainability in socio-economic systems. Topic editors: Anand Jaiswal, Vinaytosh Mishra, Dr Sarika Shrivastava, Teena Singh, Devika Nadarajah Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86375/physics-of-sustainability-cascades-contagion-and-tipping-points-in-socio-economic-systems