There is increasing evidence that climate change is a growing social and economic burden. Moreover, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at risk of falling short of their intended targets. The difficulties will only be made worse as the climate and economic burdens grow. A growing literature suggests that the problems largely stem from the non-productive use of resources which erode our social and economic well-being—especially over the long haul. These huge inefficiencies include the non-productive use of capital, materials, water, food, and especially energy. One assessment notes that, depending on how we ignore global ecosystems or, more hopefully, how we might build up a more healthy and resilient environmental capacity, “the global value of ecosystem services can decline by $51 trillion/yr or increase by $30 trillion/yr” by the year 2040 (with values in 2007 dollars). At the same time, moving to a smarter and more productive use of all resources requires a larger number of institutional changes. Such changes range from the use of new metrics to assess future opportunities to an array of policies and perspectives that promote these changes. In this special issue we review a number of different ways that institutional changes might create opportunities in which all resources might be managed more productively. While no single special issue can cover all elements of the necessary institutional changes, nor can even a series of books on the topic, this is another step forward to open up thinking more along the lines of human and cultural dimensions toward a better understanding of how resources might be more productively used for social and economic benefits.