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 1537–1548 of 15343 results

Opinion

To leave no one behind we must focus on food equity

The theme for this year’s World Food Day (16 October) is ‘leave no one behind’. However, the leave no one behind agenda as part of the Sustainable Development Goals focuses largely on addressing deprivation and not the broader inequities - injustices and power imbalances – that drive...

Lídia Cabral
Lídia Cabral & 5 others

10 October 2022

News

Food Equity at IDS

Food systems are pervaded with inequities, from production to consumption. Despite massive gains in crop yields over the last half century, we're now seeing rising levels of hunger and malnutrition across the world. Vulnerable and marginalised people in richer and poorer countries alike are...

10 October 2022

Report

The Socioeconomic Impact of Covid-19 in Low- and Middle-income Countries: A Synthesis of Learning from the Covid-19 Responses for Equity Programme

This report provides a snapshot of the research undertaken and published by members of the IDRC-supported CORE programme. It sets out the main themes addressed by the research in relation to Covid-19 impacts on industries, sectors and socioeconomic groups in locations across Africa, Middle East,...

10 October 2022

Opinion

Competing Covid-19 narratives in rural Zimbabwe

The first case of Covid-19 was identified in Zimbabwe on March 20 2020. Having seen what was happening elsewhere in the world, Zimbabweans were fearful of what was to come. Following World Health Organisation guidelines, the government imposed a strict lockdown on March 30. While there were very...

7 October 2022

Past Event

Evaluating capacity-strengthening impact: A funder perspective

In this Centre for Development Impact (CDI) webinar, Peter Taylor will discuss his learnings as a commissioner of a large multi-country programme The Think Tank Initiative (TTI) for strengthening for thinktanks in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It offered flexible, long-term funding combined...

6 October 2022

Report

Learning from Life Story Collection and Analysis With Children Who Work in the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Nepal

Learning Note 2

The CLARISSA Nepal team collected and analysed 400 life stories of children and young people engaged in or affected by the worst forms of child labour (WFCL), particularly in the “Adult Entertainment” sector in Nepal, which includes children working in Dohoris (restaurants playing folk...

Shanta Kakri & 3 others

1 October 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).

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