Reports
We have published a series of reports as we seek to address the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
- Reforestation and Restoration: Current Approaches in San Martín, opportunities for reframing the debate and advice for greater biodiversity in restoration approaches
This short report summarises evidence and analysis from a research project exploring reforestation projects in the region of San Martín in Peru. It builds on a total of 12- months of ethnographic fieldwork, based predominantly in the province of Mariscal Cáceres, conducted between 2017 and 2019, and research into those designing and marketing reforestation projects in Europe. Fieldwork included visits to communities and villages across the region and 68 semi-structured interviews with producers, reforestation practitioners and regional, provincial and local government actors, utilising a snowball sampling approach to identify relevant groups. The report also builds on analysis of a range of documentation on reforestation projects in Peru and beyond –from local NGOs and external consultants– as well as to the wider marketing material surrounding conservation and reforestation in the region.
The report suggests that more support and funding is needed for developing forest restoration with a focus on biodiversity alongside diverse agricultural production systems.This report has been created by the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) and was written by Dr Will Lock and Dr Evan Killick (School of Global Studies) with the support of Fiorella Paredes Cauna. This document is a translation of the original document written in Spanish for distribution to policymakers and practitioners in Peru.
Download the Reforestation and Restoration Report in English [PDF 805 KB]
Download the Reforestation and Restoration Report in Spanish [PDF 815 KB]
- Saving Resources: Actions that achieve both climate goals and the SDGs
In the face of shrinking resources during and after the pandemic, this report calls for aligning the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to save resources and as a way to catch up on global goals that are slipping. Specifically addressed to COP26 delegates, the report presents evidence of policies and measures that advance both climate goals and SDGs, and discusses how to ensure that these policies and measures are just and equitable.
Written by SSRP academics in partnership with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, the report draws on evidence from: the research literature; from a six-month public parliamentary inquiry on the UK’s overall progress and practical examples on aligning the climate and SDG agendas; and from a July international symposium on “Evidence for Action”, organised by the University of Sussex with partner organisations from 7 low and medium income countries that drew participants from 40 countries.
The report was launched ahead of COP26, on 18tof October 2021, with SSRP Director Professor Joseph Alcamo and Professor Adam Tickell, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex, among the speakers alongside His Excellency Mr. Antonio Jose Ardila, Colombian Ambassador to the UK, and Sheila Watson, Deputy Director of the FIA Foundation.
- Building Back Better: The SDGs as a roadmap for recovery
In July 2020, SSRP provided testimony [PDF 513KB] to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development inquiry into the UK Government's overall progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as we enter the 'Decade of Action and Delivery', and how COVID-19 is having an impact on achieving the goals.
The evidence from SSRP's testimony was quoted five times in the final report by the APPG called 'Building Back Better: The SDGs as a roadmap for recovery'. A range of SSRP research was used in the report, including Dr Mary Menton's work on the impact of the pandemic on indigenous peoples, particularly in Latin America, and Dr Andreas Antoniades' work on addressing debt distress in low-income countries to help cope with the current financial crisis and get back on track to achieving the SDGs.
- Achieving the SDGs: Building on interlinkages among goals
In September 2015, 193 countries of the UN General Assembly adopted a new development agenda Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 underlying targets that are "integrated and indivisible", the agenda provides both an extraordinary chance and extraordinary challenge to society at the global, national and local level. If these goals are met, the pay-off is likely to be a higher level of well-being throughout the world, and a more sustainable planet. Innumerable connections exist among the goals and targets: some are dependent on one another; others have potential trade-offs between them. To effectively implement sustainable social, economic and environmental development and move forward on the SDGs it is necessary to understand and act on these interactions.
This Wilton Park event considered the extent to which science and policy can connect and cooperate to achieve the SDGs, in particular how they can work together to help identify the most important interactions among SDGs to improve economic and social development.
- Global Goals Mapping: The Environment-human Landscape
In 2016/17 Professor Jörn Scharlemann from SSRP with Dr Valerie Kapos from UNEP-WCMC led on a report to understand the way humans interact with the environment.
The report, Global Goals Mapping: The Environment-human Landscape, is the first to be commissioned by the Towards a Sustainable Earth (TaSE) initiative, a partnership between Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), The Rockefeller Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
The report identified that the resilience of our ecosystems, the security of natural resources and the stability of Earths life-support systems are essential for human response and adaptation to the global changes we face, and for sustainable development. The report draws on research evidence and innovation relating to environment-human interactions published in the past 10 years to explore the specific relevance of these interactions for each individual SDG and for the relationships among Goals. It highlights 20 connections among SDGs where human-environment interactions are likely to be most critical to achieving the SDGs.
- Connecting the dots to catalyse change: Why managing interactions among SDGs is key to sustainable development
A diverse group of experts and stakeholders from many world regions and sectors gathered to debate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at a Wilton Park Roundtable (co-organised by the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme and British Council, 5-7 March 2018). We discussed a crucial aspect of implementation, namely the interactions among 17 SDGs and their 169 targets, and how these interactions are likely to have a profound influence on efforts to achieve the goals. With this statement we wish to highlight to the UN High-level Political Forum 2018 the valuable benefits to be gained by exploiting synergies among SDGs and thereby efficiently achieving all the SDGs.
Download the Connecting the dots to catalyse change report [PDF 137KB]
Our annual reports provide an updates on our progress to against KPIs.