Sustainability

Our interdisciplinary research explores how pathways to sustainability, green transformations and equitable access to resources such as land, water and food can be achieved and help us meet the environmental as well as human development-related goals of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

Our work builds on a long tradition of critical social science engagement with environmental issues and resource politics in collaboration with partners globally. It explores how pathways to sustainability are shaped by political-economic and social processes, and understands how they are driven by technology, markets, states and citizens.  Our research sheds new light on how we can achieve green transformations that move us from fossil fuel to renewable energy, from throw-away to circular economies. It addresses the politics of sustainability, and understands how transformations occur at local levels as well as global, in both rural and urban settings, and be led by citizens as well as national governments. In doing so, it shines a light on how sustainable resource use, consumption and production is shaped by issues such as gender, livelihoods and politics.

People

Melissa Leach

Emeritus Fellow

Lyla Mehta

Professorial Fellow

Ian Scoones

Professorial Fellow

Amber Huff

Research Fellow

Jeremy Allouche

Professorial Fellow

Lars Otto Naess

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead

Wei Shen

Research Fellow

Shilpi Srivastava

Research Fellow

Programmes and centres

Recent work

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Upcoming Event

Was there a famine in Gaza in 2024?

Following Israel’s declaration on 8 October 2023 of a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, a food crisis rapidly developed. But did the situation deteriorate into a full-blown famine? A series of food security assessments conducted by the international community in 2023-24 will be analysed...

14 November 2024

Upcoming Event

CEDCA Panel Discussion: Opposition and resistance to clean energy transition

While switching from fossil fuels to clean energy addresses the climate crisis and offers development opportunities, opposition to the transition is rife. The panel will discuss the pitfalls of clean energy transition, and the drivers thereof, and strategies to inform policy and...

24 October 2024

Upcoming Event

HIV, gender and the politics of medicine: Embodied democracy in the global south

A book launch and panel discussion on the lives and work of artists, activists and academics engaged in the struggle for life-saving HIV treatment in and beyond South Africa. Join us for this event with Elizabeth Mills, author of the new book HIV, Gender and the Politics of Medicine and former...

16 October 2024

Upcoming Event

Navigating uncertainty: Radical rethinking for a turbulent World

In this talk, Ian Scoones will introduce his new book, Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World (Polity Books, 2024). Uncertainties are everywhere. Whether it’s climate change, financial volatility, pandemic outbreaks or new technologies, we don’t know what the...

3 October 2024

Upcoming Event

Realising safely managed urban sanitation: the potential of ‘brown gold’

Sanitation is one of the most off-track Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the WHO and UNICEF reporting that 3.8 billion people still lacking access to safely managed sanitation. In many low- and middle-income countries, centralised and capital-intensive sanitation and waste...

19 September 2024

Opinion

Is the world prepared for a brown gold rush?

Human waste is rich in water, nutrients and organic compounds, most of which nowadays are just going down the drain. The concept of “brown gold” highlights the sheer scale of the economic benefits if we were able to recover all these hidden resources by reusing the treated...

17 September 2024

Why learn with us.

In an extraordinary time of challenge and change, we use more than 50 years of expertise to transform development approaches that create more equitable and sustainable futures. The work you do with us will help make progressive change towards universal development; to build and connect solidarities for collective action, locally and globally. The University of Sussex has been ranked 1st in the world for Development Studies for the past five years (QS World University Rankings by Subject).