Many key global sustainability challenges are closely intertwined. These challenges include air pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change, energy and food security, disease spread, species invasion, and water shortages and pollution. Systems-based approaches are beginning to provide tenable ways to assess sustainability. Further integrating coupled human and natural components of a problem across multiple dimensions, including how one solution can create unintended consequences elsewhere, is essential for developing effective policies that seek global sustainability. The ocean and coasts are indispensable for achieving global sustainability, which has a dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 14) with strong links with many other UN goals.