Sustainable Futures

Global Sustainable Development

We're helping to tackle global development challenges, understanding narratives, challenging norms and decolonising our relationships. Across digital Technologies, data and innovation, urban living, health and environmental issues, we're working towards a more equitable and diverse world.

A woman on her laptop in a cafe — © Extraordinary Zambia

Gender-just digital innovation in Africa

The GeDIA project unites women changemakers and their male allies to ensure women can fully participate in the shaping of Africa's digital futures.

Political Economy

Our political economists research how economic and political theories like capitalism, democracy, and socialism work in the real world. We research production and trade and their relation to politics and society.

The shift to home working during Covid-19 threatens the survival of local goods and services

Will Covid-19 kill the high street once and for all?

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only drastically changed how we live, but also how we work, and this could have long term consequences for the future of our cities, say academics from the University of Sheffield.

Read the news story

Repurposing 'the corporation' for a more resilient economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed weaknesses within large, well-established companies. But are those weaknesses caused by the pandemic, or are they the consequence of excesses in the non-financial (or non-banking) corporate sector post-2008?

Productivity, Innovation and Employment

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Sheffield are working to gain greater knowledge of productivity, innovation and employment in the UK. Across a number of projects, academics are contributing to how these efficiencies might grow and change in the future.

Energy, a powerful resource

Everything needs resources; energy is one of the critical resources. But our growing population and desire to consume is demanding more. At current rates of economic growth and development we’re going to run out of resources, including energy...

Group of colleagues working in meeting room — free stock image from piqsels.com

Boosting productivity and wellbeing in the UK workplace

Researchers at the University of Sheffield, along with six further institutions in the UK, have contributed to a new initiative to help boost productivity and wellbeing through supporting the growth of better management practices in the UK.

Woman walking up a street with a large box on back

The hidden side of retail returns

The rising cost of returned products is a burden on Britain’s retailers and the environment. Sheffield researchers have been working with businesses in the retail supply chain to reduce costs to the company while keeping high-quality products out of landfill.

Sustainable Environment

Sustainable environment

We're living in a time of environmental crisis, where climate change is creating unprecedented challenges and globalisation and consumerism grow. Our researchers are dedicated to understanding how we interact with people and planet, to develop new thinking on how we can better protect our home.

Tackling hunger and food insecurity in the UK

We all have a right to food, yet household food insecurity persists in the UK. How can organisations, politicians and the public work together to find a solution?

From daily actions to big changes: responding to climate change in the context of rapid urbanisation

The population of the world is expected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050. Most of this population growth will happen in small and medium-sized cities. Due to this rapid urbanisation, the majority of emissions in the next century will be emitted by infrastructures that are yet to be built.

A tractor pulls a trailer across a field of dry grass spreading rock dust in a long cloud

Applying rock dust to croplands could absorb up to 2 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, research shows

Adding crushed rock dust to farmland could draw down up to two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air per year and help meet key global climate targets, according to a major new study led by the University of Sheffield.

The fight against deforestation in Europe

Dr George Iordăchescu's work explores the impact of EU regulations on timber trade and securitisation in Eastern Europe and aims to understand how a redefinition of illegal logging and timber trade as a security threat has triggered a massive citizen involvement in surveilling and reporting of environmental crimes.

Indonesian rainforest cleared for oil palm plantation

80 per cent of Indonesian rainforest vulnerable to palm oil destruction is not protected, research shows

More than 80 per cent of the Indonesian rainforest, mangroves and peatlands most vulnerable to being cleared for palm oil production is completely unprotected by the country’s Forest Moratorium, according to new research.

Students gather around concept art in the Department of Landscape Architecture.

Does architecture play a role in the climate emergency?

Empowering students to become global citizens and inspire new ways of building.

Read the news story

Energy Institute

The Energy Institute at the University of Sheffield is finding low-carbon solutions to the world’s biggest energy challenges and our researchers are involved in finding sustainable solutions.

Find out more

Picture of a box of allotment produce on the ground with green plants in the background

Institute for Sustainable Food

University experts, including researchers from the Faculty of Social Sciences, are finding dynamic solutions to the global challenges of food security and sustainability. Our innovative research provides a social angle to the issues around food sustainability.

Find out more