Planetary Mind – Environmental Agency as Source of Mental Well-Being

Population-level mental health is in crisis, with rising rates of depression, anxiety and burnout across age groups. At the same time, the climate crisis is accelerating, alongside broader environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. These crises are typically studied and treated in isolation, despite emerging evidence that they interact through shared psychosocial and structural pathways. These include increasing uncertainty, loss of perceived control and agency.

The Planetary Mind research project aims to investigate how environmental agency, i.e. the ability to make sustainable choices in everyday life, affects mental health across different age groups. The project has three main objectives: (1) to examine the role of environmental agency in mental health; (2) to generate new knowledge on individual and collective environmental agency as a psychosocial resource and its impact on participation and well-being; and (3) to develop and evaluate scalable, participatory, and digitally supported approaches to strengthening environmental agency and mental health in everyday life.