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By signing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the Netherlands also envisions a sustainably managed Netherlands in 2030. This requires sustainable transitions in the fields of agriculture, energy production and climate policy. We describe how the soil plays an essential role in these transitions. If we use the soil more sustainably, the soil can be the key to achieving many of the social challenges such as climate change (SDG 13), food security (SDG 2), energy (SDG 7) and biodiversity restoration (SDG 15). The approach that we want to highlight is an invitation to all land managers and policymakers to put sustainable soil management in a broader perspective. Sustainable soil management should not stand alone, but form part of the entire biobased economy. To this end, smart connections and / or new dependencies must be created that replace the current unsustainable dependencies. Three examples show how these transitions can be put in motion in practice. The main lessons that emerge from this are that for a successful transition different fields of knowledge must be combined and that narratives with examples of positive trade-offs between SDGs contribute to the adoption of sustainable soil management.
