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 1549–1560 of 15343 results

Opinion

Natasha Maru on pastoralism and temporality in Kutch

Natasha Maru worked with pastoralists in the Kutch region of Gujarat during her doctoral research with the PASTRES programme. In this video, she talks about the focus of her study and the methods she used, which pay attention to the relationships between mobility and time.

30 September 2022

News

IDS and Fundación Paraguaya announce Memorandum of Understanding

IDS and Fundación Paraguaya have this month signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), cementing the growing relationship and collaboration between both organisations. Fundación Paraguaya is a Paraguayan non-governmental organization renowned globally for its work around social...

29 September 2022

News

Pioneering architect Yasmeen Lari to deliver IDS Annual Lecture 2022

Pakistan architect Yasmeen Lari will discuss her self-build, zero carbon, affordable structures, which are now providing emergency shelter after the devastating Pakistan floods. The Institute of Development Studies is proud to announce that Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female...

29 September 2022

Opinion

Pressing for global action on antimicrobial resistance

In an address to the 2022 World Antimicrobial Resistance Congress in Washington D.C. in September, Xavier Becerra, United States Secretary for Health and Human Services, described antimicrobial resistance as “…the second punch [after Covid-19] that gets those who are least prepared, the most...

27 September 2022

Past Event

Climate Change and Agrarian Justice Conference

International Online Conference on Climate Change and Agrarian Justice - with IDS Fellow Ian Scoones Dates: 26-29 September 2022 Time: 13.00 - 15.30 CAT/ CET each day The way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change is a vital focus for both thinking and action....

From 26 September 2022 until 29 September 2022

Opinion

Neglected but not defeated: The sanitation realities of snake charmers

The Kalbelia community in Rajasthan, known as the snake charmer tribe, have slowly lost their artistic, performance-based livelihoods due to the draconian Criminal Tribes Act. This has left the tribe severely marginalised, struggling to survive and largely practising open defecation. This blog...

23 September 2022

Opinion

The Almajiri children in Kano City, Nigeria: A hidden sanitation issue

Kano city has nearly 1,400 Qur’anic schools called “Tsangaya”, teaching about 150,000 boys aged between 5-14 years known as “Almajiris”. Vitally, this blog calls for Tsangaya schools to be included in sanitation and hygiene programmes that schools in the formal educational system in...

23 September 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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