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

Filter results by

Showing 1417–1428 of 15343 results

Past Event

Sussex Development Lectures

Crisis, development and ecologies of the new commons

In response to acute crises and complex, long-term systemic challenges, structural violence, austerity and neglect, people around the world are coming together in commons. Communities of ‘commoners’ are reconfiguring relationships between society, technology and the non-human environment,...

7 December 2022

News

Gender justice: Decades of research from the IDS Bulletin

Activists around the world have been marking 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence – an annual international campaign to raise awareness of the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) and to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. In solidarity...

6 December 2022

Opinion

How pastoral farming can help to avoid a biodiversity crisis

The world is losing its biodiversity. An estimated 41,000 animal species are now threatened with extinction. World leaders will convene at the UN COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal this month to discuss ways of reversing this decline. Participants are expected to adopt a global...

6 December 2022

News

“A breath of fresh air”? What Lula’s return means for development

Despite deep division in the country and close allies of the defeated president Jair Bolsonaro being elected to Congress, Lula’s return to power will see a shake-up of Brazil’s approach to development, leading experts said at a recent IDS event. This event featured a diverse range of...

5 December 2022

Opinion

How biodiversity conservation schemes can harm the environment

Land loss for livestock production is increasingly seen as a major contributor to climate change and nature loss. While cutting down rich forests to grow livestock feed for industrial livestock is certainly harmful, misunderstandings about rangelands and pastoral interactions with their...

5 December 2022

Brief

L’usage des arts pour le dialogue environnemental au Sahel (version accessible)

IDS Policy Briefing 205

L’art a été utilisé pour communiquer les préoccupations environnementales dans les pays sahéliens. Néanmoins, le dialogue dirigé par les arts entre les acteurs politiques et les citoyens est cependant rare, bien qu’il ait le potentiel de trouver des solutions aux problèmes...

1 December 2022

Brief

L’usage des arts pour le dialogue environnemental au Sahel

IDS Policy Briefing 205

L’art a été utilisé pour communiquer les préoccupations environnementales dans les pays sahéliens. Néanmoins, le dialogue dirigé par les arts entre les acteurs politiques et les citoyens est cependant rare, bien qu’il ait le potentiel de trouver des solutions aux problèmes...

1 December 2022

Report

Uncertainty: Child and Youth Rights and Participation

The sixth Rejuvenate dialogue was held on 15th September 2022. Six panellists working across contexts and themes joined the Rejuvenate team on a discussion on uncertainty and it’s intersection with child and youth rights and participation. From past research, we know that young people do not...

1 December 2022

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).

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.