Sustainable societies require action from all of us. We study the everyday aspects of sustainability from new perspectives, to gain a better understanding of the social, cultural and emotional dimensions of achieving more sustainable societies. This includes exploring the lived experiences of those working towards a more sustainable future.
The GSI’s research under this theme seeks to ask and answer questions about everyday experiences in the pursuit of, or at odds to, sustainability aims. Examples include how the climate crisis prompts emotional experiences such as climate grief and eco-anxiety, or how mindfulness practices could help us take more meaningful action.
We’re interested in how climate change is affecting individual and societal wellbeing, and well as how our identities are currently tied to unsustainable practices. Several of our projects look at how cultural factors interplay with experiences of (un)sustainability across the globe.
We have also worked with a number of artists and creators to explore how creativity can help express our feelings and experiences related to climate change.
Many of our MSc students undertake dissertations in this area, including exploring experiences of those trying to build sustainability action within different business sectors.
Sustainability: new questions, new answers is a free collection of articles and artwork that lends new perspectives to a wide range of sustainability issues.
Read more about Sustainability: New Questions, New Answers
Behaviour Change from the Inside Out is a free collection of 12 short essays on using psychosocial perspectives in sustainability.
Read more about Behaviour Change from the Inside Out
Connect4 explores the links between water resources and communities in four countries of the Limpopo Basin in southern Africa.
Read more about Connect4 Water Resilience
Exploring Eco-anxiety Through Performance investigates how anxious feelings influence engagement with climate action, and what social functions are in place to support one another.
Read more about Exploring Eco-anxiety Through Performance
Energy-PIECES offered opportunities for PhD and early career researchers in the social sciences and humanities to get involved in energy policy(making).
Read more about Energy PIECES
This project, commissioned by CPRE, produced recommendations to facilitate energy saving and carbon reduction in rural homes and community buildings.
Read more about Warm and Green
The PBES project created a network of early career researchers with an interest in thinking differently about practice and the built environment.
Read more about PBES
Professor of Social Sustainability