Environment and Sustainability
Transitioning to a just and sustainable society is the grand challenge of the age. The Environment and Sustainability research group undertakes cross-disciplinary and geographical research focused on the theory, methods and policy of every major element of social and environmental sustainability, from health and well-being, through to risk, ethics, and place and identity.
The team have published widely in geography, economics, psychology, environmental science, sociology, political science, development studies and beyond. Our work has been recognised, for example, through a Leverhulme Fellowship to Saffron O’Neill on climate change communication, a Newton Prize award to Federico Caprotti for research on off-grid urban energy transitions in South Africa, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge prize on climate change to Neil Adger, participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Catherine Mitchell and Patrick Devine-Wright), and the inclusion of Patrick Devine-Wright, Katrina Brown and Neil Adger in the list of ISI Highly Cited authors.
Group members
Our research focuses on sustainability challenges at multiple spatial and political scales, working with researchers on common challenges across the Global South, Europe, through to key action research in Devon and Cornwall.
With partners across disciplines and world regions, our research:
- Co-creates research with civil society and key decision-makers around sustainability transitions, building resilience, and envisioning future sustainable worlds, including leading on the Climate Emergency initiatives of Devon.
- Develops state-of-the-art social science methods to generate new explanations of the unsustainability crises and practical solutions, from ethnographic, spatial, participatory and visual methods, to large-scale survey research.
- Contributes to national and global assessments such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment.
- Develops long-term partnerships with leading sustainability research across the University of Exeter ( Energy Policy Group, Global Systems Institute, Environment and Sustainability Institute, Alan Turing Institute, European Centre for Environment and Human Health) and globally, for example with Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies Australia, Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, Sweden, Duke University, US and others.
