Sustainability & Wellbeing

The wellbeing of all living beings depends on the health of our planet. Climate change and biodiversity loss affect the quality of life for all. These impacts are not felt equally: for example, some human communities in the Global South face much greater risks from climate change; some birds are forced to leave areas where farming harms their habitats.

The Sustainability & Wellbeing (SW) team studies how society can respond to these challenges in equitable and sustainable ways. The team focuses on key questions: 

• How to move away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, while keeping energy systems safe and reliable?
• How to support nature and mitigate/adapt to environmental change?
• How wellbeing relates to poverty, migration and inequality?
  

We address these challenges through inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration. The SW team brings together researchers at different career stages, from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, combining insights from, for example, climate science, ecology, science and technology studies, health, sociology and anthropology.

Our research is connected to real-world challenges. We engage in community-based practices to tackle socioecological inequalities, for example by promoting healthy nutrition, sustainable tourism or regenerative food systems. We collaborate with NGOs and local governments to preserve endangered bird species. At the global level, we contribute to major breakthroughs in scientific knowledge, such as the United Nations IPCC report.

Because the wellbeing of all living beings is connected to the health of the planet, our choices of  today matter: they determine the wellbeing of generations to come.