Applied Psychology like the real-world is multi-faceted, and the 18 divisions of the Association are a reflection of that/their dynamic connectedness. A year ago last October, the Division of Economic Psychology and the Division of Traffic and Transportation Psychology co-hosted the webinar Towards Sustainable Transport Choices. In November 2025, the Division of Environmental and Health Psychology with the European Health Psychology Society’s Special Interest Group on Equity, Global Health, and Sustainability co-led a joint session called Healthy Environment, Healthy People: Bridging Environmental and Health Psychology. These are just two examples of interdivisional partnerships, yet they show, as we learned in our April eNews, what is possible when people, applied psychologists, work together.

The present issue of APAW provides updates some of those connective threads, and tissue, one year on. Together, they walk the talk on sustainability (Myers, 2003). They speak truths to sustainability backlash and impasse (Brookes & Bal, 2025). Furthermore, the insights in the articles that follow are not restricted to economics, or transportation, or to health and wellbeing. It is not difficult to see for example how sustainable transportation habits, and habit change, are linked to major changes across the world of Work, including in work and organizational psychology. 

These include for instance a tidal shift away from working in a singular, physical, ‘workplace’ to an digitally enabled work ecosystem, in the wake of the pandemic and the rise of digital platforms (which we are utilising now to read these words :)). Applied research in turn shows, for example, that working-from-home is linked to reducing CO2 emissions (Stefaniec et al, 2024).

In a similar vein, as we will see below, climate action and eating habits are further intertwined, and linked to wider human Food Security. Likewise, in the contribution from UN-accredited CSEND (Centre for SocioEconomic Development), there are opportunities for applied psychology to upskill and make a difference in the domain of ‘new diplomacies’ when policies, treaties and compacts are being negotiated, and re-negotiated, for instance in the domain(s) of health equity. Such new diplomacies are all about working through and with partnerships, not only across the various aspects of applied psychology, but also with multilateral and civil society agencies, foundations, governments and organizations of all denominations, from the smallest NGO or SME, to multinational corporations and supply chains, to the UN themselves. This application reflects the one and only Process goal in the SDGs 17-Partnerships for Sustainability, and it connects us all.

References

Brookes, A., & Bal, M. (2025). Moving beyond the sustainability impasse: Reframing global crises as societal dysfunction. Global Challenges Journal, XX, 1-23.

Myers, D. G. (2003). The social psychology of sustainability. World Futures, 59, 201-211.

Stefaniax, A., Brazil, W., Whitney, W., Zhang, W., Colleary, B., & Caulfield, B. (2024). Examining the long-term reduction in commuting emissions from working from home. Transportation Research, 127, 1-14.