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

Lyla Mehta

Professorial Fellow

Ian Scoones

Professorial Fellow

Amber Huff

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead

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

Filter results by

Showing 1–12 of 14671 results

Upcoming Event

Digital disinformation in Africa: Hashtag activism and state propaganda

In an era of hashtag campaigns and online organising, politicians and corporations are spending billions to disrupt dialogue and drown-out dissent online across Africa. Join this event to discuss these issues and more, explored in the new book Digital Disinformation in Africa: Hashtag Politics,...

30 April 2024

News

UK aid watchdog raises concerns about British International Investments

The International Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has published a new report on UK Aid to India that it says ‘raises significant concerns’ on the lack of transparency, and governance processes of British International Investments (BII). The report is a follow up to the ICAI review of...

18 April 2024

Brief

Key Considerations: Child Engagement in the Context of Disease Outbreaks in Eastern and Southern Africa

SSHAP Briefing

Effective child engagement strategies are essential to optimise the response to disease outbreaks and minimise their impact while ensuring children's protection, well-being and resilience. When children understand disease outbreaks, they are better able to cope, contribute and recover. This...

Elena Reilly & 2 others

18 April 2024

Opinion

Building trust: Community solutions for social assistance accountability in Somalia

Somalia is consistently among one of the most challenging environments for aid agencies and government entities to provide social assistance due to the ongoing conflict and limited government control. Aid providers struggle to reach people in areas not under government control, which exacerbates...

Louisa Seferis & 2 others

18 April 2024

Working Paper

Power, Trust, and Pre-Cooked Programmes: The Accountability of ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Social Assistance in Somalia

BASIC Research Working Paper 22

Social assistance in Somalia has become deeply embedded in the country’s political economy and struggles with systemic diversion and corruption, which negatively affects how programmes on accountability of aid function in practice. This paper examines systems for accountability of social...

Louisa Seferis & 4 others

18 April 2024

News

Podcast: Reflections on Development with Melissa Leach

In this special episode of the IDS Between the Lines podcast produced with the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI). Andy Sumner, President of EADI and Professor of International Development at Kings College London interviews Professor Melissa Leach who...

17 April 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).