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 145–156 of 15276 results

Opinion

What’s next for international development? Key trends to watch this decade

Evidence suggests that the world is becoming increasingly volatile in the face of complex and interconnected challenges. It is also clear that we are failing to achieve key climate and development goals. More optimistically, other signals suggest that collective action still has the power to...

18 February 2025

Publication

Humanitarian Learning Resource Guide 3rd Edition

This resource guide from the Knowledge for Development and Diplomacy programme (K4DD) is designed to provide the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) staff and other interested parties with information about free online courses and materials they can use to develop...

17 February 2025

Publication

Reading Pack: Humanitarian Action – 2nd Edition

The purpose of humanitarian action is to support people affected by armed conflicts and disasters by helping them to save their lives, alleviate their suffering, maintain their dignity, assist their recovery and increase their resilience. This reading pack from the Knowledge for Development and...

17 February 2025

Past Event

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

Poverty is bad for everyone. With millions around the world struggling to make ends meet and increased socioeconomic uncertainty making poverty a more probable prospect for many more, tackling poverty has never been more urgent. Watch now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsvlCGa1avY Yet,...

11 February 2025

Brief

Simplified Taxation in Africa: What We Know – and Need to Know

ICTD Policy Brief 15

Most economic operators in Africa are small and informal firms that fall under the purview of presumptive or simplified tax regimes (STRs). These taxes are expected to fulfil a range of functions, from raising revenue to facilitating formalisation and improving revenue authorities’ data, and...

Max Gallien
Max Gallien & 5 others

10 February 2025

Opinion

Jeremy Swift – an appreciation

Jeremy and I were colleagues at IDS for 16 years from 1981-1997, though he was there before me, and after. He was exceptional in many ways. Jeremy was adventurous, seasoned and experienced. There was something about him of Wilfred Thesiger, T. E. Lawrence or Gertrude Bell: a love of and...

10 February 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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