Abstract Sustainability has many dimensions, including
various aspects of environmental, social and economic
sustainability. This paper proposes an analytical framework
of risk-related governance for sustainability, based on lit-
erature review, focusing on two dimensions—knowledge
integration and multi-actor governance. Knowledge inte-
gration necessitates wider coverage of predicted and
anticipated risks and information on those risks. Multi-
actor governance necessitates mechanisms that enable
cooperation among actors. The relevance of this analytical
framework is then checked using concrete cases of gov-
ernance for reducing emission from deforestation and for-
est degradation (REDD?), and the possible case of
governance for sustainable phosphorus management.