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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 1705–1716 of 15404 results

Journal

Pandemic Perspectives: Why Different Voices and Views Matter

IDS Bulletin 53.3

Responding effectively to the Covid-19 crisis and in ways that address systemic inequalities in the longer term raises many challenges – and opportunities – for researchers and commissioners of research. Launched in October 2020, the Covid Collective brought together the expertise...

29 July 2022

News

Development and trade at IDS

International trade and trade policy play a key role in contributing to improved livelihoods across the world. Yet it is well-established that trade generates winners and losers. Research has shown that despite the overall benefits from trade, trade can lead to increasing poverty or have...

27 July 2022

Opinion

Refugee support in Pakistan lacks responsiveness to religious inequalities

It’s almost been a year since the Taliban swiftly regained power in Afghanistan, which led to a new exodus of refugees, many of whom sought refuge in neighbouring Pakistan. In this blog, Jennifer P. Eggert, Maryam Kanwer and Jaffer A. Mirza share insights and recommendations from their new...

26 July 2022

Working Paper

Responsiveness to religious inequalities in contexts of displacement: Evidence from providers of humanitarian assistance to Shi’a Hazara refugees from Afghanistan in Pakistan

CREID Working Paper 12

This Working Paper discusses inequalities caused or exacerbated by religious diversity in displacement and how humanitarian action can be aware of and responsive to this. It is based on interviews with Shi’a Hazara refugees from Afghanistan and local, national and international providers of...

26 July 2022

News

IDS welcomes the SPECTRA Art Collective

There are many unseen elements to any spectrum, and autism is no different. Navigating this world and society is a means of study for many within the autistic community. Why are things the way they are? What are the rules and governance structures that we must learn from the ground up? How do we...

26 July 2022

Impact Story

Influencing a rethink of donor policy on microfinance

How best to help the world’s poorest people escape from poverty is being reappraised thanks to findings from the widest-ever review of evidence on the impact of financial services conducted by IDS and the University of East Anglia (UEA). Microfinance and microenterprise interventions...

25 July 2022

Opinion

The changing face of urban agriculture in Zimbabwe

Over the last four weeks, the blog has explored the changing face of urban agriculture across our sites in Chikombedzi, Triangle/Hippo Valley, Maphisa, Masvingo, Chatsworth and Mvurwi. We have explored the growth of urban agriculture and its different forms (backyard, open space and titled) and...

25 July 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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