Environmental governance in globally telecoupled systems: Mapping the terrain towards an integrated research agenda

Environmental governance is increasingly challenged by global flows, which connect distant places through
trade, investment and movement of people. To date, research on this topic has been dispersed across multiple
fields and diverse theoretical perspectives. We present the results of a systematic literature review of 120 journal
articles on the environmental governance of global flows and their environmental impacts, employing the notion
of telecoupling as a common analytical lens.
Six themes emerged, which can guide a comparative and policy-relevant research agenda on governing global
telecoupling: (1) advancement of problem-centered research (as opposed to studying existing governance ar-
rangements), (2) displacement of environmental burdens from Global North to South from a telecoupling
perspective, (3) environmental governance of telecoupling between Global South countries, (4) policy coherence
in governing global flows, (5) cross-scalar interactions between private and public governance and (6) combi-
nations of governance arrangements to effectively address environmental problems in telecoupled settings.