Social sciences are vitally important to understand and address processes and issues in society, including environmental issues. The potential value and contribution of social science for research and policy and practice has been discussed since the 1960s (Caswill & Lyall, 2013), and a substantial number of outputs on the topic have been produced. This annotated bibliography provides signposting to key publications. It contains examples of work written from academic and non-academic perspectives. The annotated bibliography can be used as a tool to champion greater use of social sciences in inter- and transdisciplinary research, to justify funding or non-financial support for social science, or to help create an evidence base for the use of social science in policy and practice. It forms part of a suite of documents and tools aimed at championing the importance and uniqueness of Environmental Social Science (ESS) and promoting its use and impact. These include a definition and dimensions document (Gatersleben, Warren, Marselle, et al., 2024), information on toolkits that support ESS knowledge exchange (Contreras et al., 2024), and an overview of useful case studies (Warren & Gatersleben, 2024). Where most of these documents focus specifically on the role of social science in understanding and tacking environmental issues and people-environment interactions, this annotated bibliography also includes key publications that discuss the value and impact of social science in understanding and tackling social issues more broadly.