The Global Sustainability Institute is committed to playing a key role in developing practical solutions to the sustainability challenges we all face, both locally and globally. We do this through research and education – bringing together the information needed to make decisions, with the people capable of taking action.

Delivering sustainability requires an integrated view of the world. Here at the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), we’re committed to playing a key role in developing practical solutions to the challenges facing humanity.

Key to this is bringing together the information needed to make decisions, with the people capable of taking action.

GSI research focuses on personal motivations and systems change set against the challenges of sustainability. GSI core research question is: how does the system influence the individual, and how does the individual influence the system?

The ‘system’ is the political, financial, industrial and social frameworks that contribute to challenges we face and lock us into future pathways. These may be environmental challenges such as climate change, natural capital challenges such as resource limits or social challenges such as local and global inequity.

GSI has three key areas of research:
Consumption & change
Global Risk & Resilience
Education for Sustainability.


GSI has built a global reputation for our research, with major publications in the communication of climate science, policy, and climate finance. We have partnerships with businesses, not-for-profit organisations, the UK Government, EU Commission and United Nations as well as UK Research Council-funded projects.

The core team of researchers works alongside visiting and honorary fellows, project management and knowledge transfer partners. We’re in the process of expanding our research student intake too, with new PhDs and Professional Doctorates. The Professional Doctorate programme allows professionals to continue to work full-time while tackling sustainability challenges. We’re also involved in a number of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs).

Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), Anglia Ruskin University