About
The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures is an ambitious and innovative collaboration between the University of Sheffield and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. Our sustainability research creates knowledge and connects it to policy debates on how to build a fairer world and save natural resources for future generations.
Find out more about our work so far in our annual review (via Issuu.com)
What do we do?
Research: We work across disciplines to create new ideas and technologies, which combine to make local, national and global communities more sustainable, now and in the future. Find out more
Training: We are building a global community of sustainability leaders through a PhD programme. The Grantham Scholars carry out excellent interdisciplinary research, learning the technical skills and political awareness needed to create a sustainable world. Find out more
Engagement: We collaborate with policymakers, industry partners and communities, working towards policies based on evidence, sustainable business practices and an empowered public. Find out more
What are our priorities?
Enough for Everyone: making sure that people everywhere have enough clean water and nutritious, safe, appropriate food to be healthy and active; as well as reliable, affordable and clean energy to meet their needs. We focus on:
- social justice: promoting fairness in the way resources are distributed within and between societies, and transparency in decision-making
- increasing our means: devising strategies to increase food and energy production so that the needs of growing and more affluent populations can be met
- adapting to climate change: developing approaches to maintain agricultural production and access to water, fit for different regions of the planet
Reducing Global Consumption: slowing the depletion of natural resources and emissions of greenhouse gases, to make sure that society’s needs are met without compromising the needs of future generations, or causing undue damage to ecosystems. We focus on:
- shrinking environmental footprints: using natural resources and energy more efficiently in production, reducing waste, and developing renewable alternatives
- changing consumer practices: developing policies that encourage people to choose more sustainably produced foods and goods, and allow consumption to fall globally
- conserving ecosystems: reducing the environmental impact of agriculture, reaping the benefits that come from plants and soils, and conserving biodiversity to preserve nature’s immaterial value
Background
The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures is co-funded by the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, founded by Jeremy and Hanne Grantham. A world-renowned investment manager, Jeremy Grantham was brought up in Doncaster and graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in Economics in 1961. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University in 2012 and is a strong advocate for environmental issues.
“It is crucial that scientists take more career risks and sound a more realistic, more desperate, note on the global-warming problem. Younger scientists are obsessed by thoughts of tenure, so it is probably up to older, senior and retired scientists to do the heavy lifting. Be arrested if necessary. This is not only the crisis of your lives – it is also the crisis of our species’ existence. I implore you to be brave.”
Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature (491, 303), copyright (2012)
The Grantham Centre builds on the groundbreaking work of Project Sunshine at the University of Sheffield. Project Sunshine aims to harness the power of the sun to tackle the biggest challenge facing the world today: meeting the increasing food and energy needs of the world’s population in the context of an uncertain climate and global environment change. We are working to achieve this goal through the interdisciplinary research projects that make up the Grantham Centre.