With a growing body of conceptual work making a strong case for using the ‘social-ecological systems’ (SES) framework to theorize on corporate sustainability, we need to pursue more empirical research in this domain. In this paper, I advocate for a (re)focus on the planetary boundaries framework as an effective foundation for empirical research in corporate sustainability that adopts an SES perspective. I combine a review of the literature on planetary boundaries in management with characteristics of the framework itself to develop a conceptual model of how scholarship can utilize this framework to progress our empirical research through an SES perspective. With this conceptual model, I offer three pathways for future research on corporate sustainability applying an SES lens, including: focusing on organizations’ interactions with individual PBs rather than the framework as a whole; investigating organizations’ interactions with interdependencies among PBs; and researching whether and how collaborations with scientific groups with expertise on PBs can be most effective, with a focus on scale and place.
