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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 1165–1176 of 15388 results

Report

People’s Agenda for Pandemic Preparedness

In May 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Covid-19 is no longer a health emergency. Now that the world is in this new period of living with the coronavirus, it is an important time to gather knowledge gained from our experiences. Over 50 researchers from 25 countries...

Catherine Grant
Catherine Grant & 50 others

30 May 2023

Opinion

“Boğatepe Charter of Futures”: Learnings from the exhibition and speculations from pastures

The leading artist of the project, also a shepherd from the pastoralist community of Northern Spain, Fernando Garcia Dory, installed on the wall the plants brought from pastures of Boğatepe, along with lyrics of a local artistic verbal expression, bayatı or mani. Boğatepe Environment and...

M. Fatih Tatari

26 May 2023

Working Paper

Between God, the People, and the State: Citizen Conceptions of Zakat

ICTD Working Paper; 167

The global pool for zakat – one of the five pillars of Islam mandating an annual payment typically equivalent to 2.5 per cent of an individual’s productive wealth – is estimated to make up between USD 200 billion and 1 trillion. States have long sought to harness zakat for their own...

Max Gallien
Max Gallien & 2 others

25 May 2023

Opinion

Learning from a people’s agenda for pandemic preparedness

Now that Covid-19 has officially become an established health issue, and no longer a public health emergency of international concern, this is an important time to act, learn lessons and collate knowledge gained from our experiences. Together with 50 researchers from 25 countries, across six...

25 May 2023

Brief

Key Considerations: Community-Based Surveillance in Public Health

This brief offers key considerations for CBS programming to guide policymakers, public health officials, civil society organisations, health workers, researchers, advocates, and others interested in health surveillance. It is based on a rapid review of CBS guidance and social science literature.

24 May 2023

Past Event

Youth employment and political representation in Africa

The population in sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing and the youngest in the world, yet the politicians ruling them are typically among the oldest. In some East African countries, the current rulers are yesterday’s rebels. Some have developed a range of authoritarian practices to stay...

24 May 2023

Working Paper

Living Off-Grid Food and Infrastructure Collaboration: Concepts and Assumptions

Living Off-Grid Food and Infrastructure Collaboration Working Paper 1

This working paper is the product of the Living Off-Grid Food and Infrastructure Collaboration. It is designed to bring together our thinking on how infrastructure can shape the food and nutritional security of urban marginalised populations. Infrastructure assemblages include the material...

Jane Battersby
Jane Battersby & 13 others

23 May 2023

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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