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

Research Fellow

Wei Shen

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead and Research Fellow

Shilpi Srivastava

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead and Research Fellow

Programmes and centres

Recent work

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Showing 1–12 of 15276 results

Upcoming Event

Food Equity

Power relationships and aquaculture livelihoods in Vietnam

Join us for this seminar that explores different kinds of power relationships that influence people’s access to resources, livelihood options and sustainability outcomes. This seminar looks at a case study of aquaculture production systems in northern Vietnam and the power relationships...

15 July 2025

Upcoming Event

The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health: IDS launch event

We are delighted to invite you to attend the IDS launch of The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health (LCGGH) report. The rollback in gender rights and challenges to global health organisations around the world threatens to reverse decades of progress on global health. This...

14 May 2025

Upcoming Event

Folk seed banks to build resistance to seed capitalism

Join us for this talk by Indian seed sovereignty scholar and activist Dr. Debal Deb. Neolithic farmers created all the cultivated crop species from their wild progenitors. Generations of pre-industrial farmers since the Neolithic era have subsequently developed a legion of crop landraces,...

7 May 2025

Past Event

Development Studies Week 2025

The Institute of Development Studies (IDS), in partnership with the University of Sussex, has been ranked first in the world for Development Studies in the QS World University Rankings for the ninth consecutive year. Together with the University of Sussex, we provide 29 postgraduate degrees...

1 May 2025

Opinion

What does solidarity mean in practice?

I was coming out of a lecture that I was giving to IDS masters’ students on struggles against anti-gender backlash by women’s groups when I saw the news: 15 Palestinian medical workers brutally killed and buried in a mass grave by Israel. My blood boiled, and I wished that I could do...

30 April 2025

News

Podcast – The empathy fix: Why poverty persists and how to change it

A poverty line of $6.85 a day, as used by the World Bank, indicates a substantial level of deprivation, impacting the lives of billions globally. Indeed, nearly half of the World’s population falls into this category. So, if poverty is something we all want to see less of, why does it prove so...

30 April 2025

Past Event

We power our own change: The future of community-led development

Can principles of Community-led Development define the future of our sector? By introducing their recent publication, We Power our Own Change, authors in this seminar will reflect on the practices, insights, and the potential principles of Community-led Development and what it holds for the...

30 April 2025

Past Event

Food Fight: From plunder and profit to people and planet

Join us for the launch of ‘Food Fight’ – a book by food and nutrition expert Stuart Gillespie that shines a light on the evolution of our global food system from its origins in colonial plunder through the last fifty years of neoliberalism, before concluding with a set of actions to put...

29 April 2025

Opinion

What is ‘success’ in Zimbabwe’s land reform areas?

What constitutes ‘success’ if you have land in the A1 land reform areas in Zimbabwe? This is the question we have been asking of local residents across our study sites in Mazowe, Gutu, Masvingo and Matobo districts. We have held 11 workshops in different sites, involving around 208 people...

28 April 2025

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).

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