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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News

Recent graduates author IDS Working Paper on food security

IDS graduates Callum Chapman and Norma Jean Park (MA Food & Development, Class of 2024) were lead authors on the IDS Working Paper Towards Transformative Change: Grass-roots Innovations for Food Security During Crises in Brighton & Hove, UK. This Working Paper analyses the emergence and...

7 April 2025

Opinion

ODA cuts and healthcare devastation in South Sudan

Poor countries are reeling from the sudden and wide-ranging US aid cuts. Among the worst affected is South Sudan, a poor country which gained independence in July 2011. South Sudan relies on international assistance to provide basic services to its people. These cuts will devastate South...

7 April 2025

Publication

Powering Change: The Critical Role of Women and Youth in Sustainable Energy Transformation

Research for Policy and Practice

How do we build economic systems that recognise and work within the biophysical limits of our finite planet while simultaneously reducing poverty and inequality? This has become a defining question of our time, and the global transition to clean energy is increasingly considered an important...

Bipasha Baruah & 9 others

7 April 2025

Opinion

Five strategies for disability inclusive education

The Raising Learning Outcomes (RLO) Programme emerged as a response to the global learning crisis. Launched in 2014 as a strategic partnership between the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a number of RLO researchers...

Laurie Spicer
Laurie Spicer & 3 others

2 April 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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