Current projects

Bristol’s Green Roots

This project documented Bristol’s history of sustainability and environmental action before the information, personal and collective histories, and evidence of action is lost and forgotten. We have explored Bristol’s role in the development of the modern environmental movement over the last 50 years.

You can watch videos from some of the interviews here. The project was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and has drawn on ... more

This EU FP7 funded project is investigating how we can manage and allocate the earth's resources fairly and make the transition towards a sustainable future. We are the lead partner in the project.

SUSTAINABILITY TOOLKIT

The Bristol second intake started on the 17th January 2012. The London first intake started 18th January 2012.

MASTERS IN MANAGING SUSTAINABILITY AND UNCERTAINTY

We are expanding our Learning Programme by launching a new MSc - the Masters in Managing Sustainability and Uncertainty.

The two-year Masters programme, accredited by a local University, is aimed at people with experience of management, who have tried conventional approaches to doing things better, but who need more effective ways to tackle the increasing complexity and uncertainty of a fast-moving world. Participants will be given the opportunity to deepen their own experience and understanding of the world, to learn more about systems thinking and what being sustainable means, for themselves and for their organisation.

Martin Sandbrook, Director of Learning and the programme leader, says “We desperately need practical new ways to make our organisations sustainable and to deal effectively with the uncertain conditions we face. This programme is designed to introduce different ways of thinking, but also to answer the ‘So what?’ question, by demonstrating how we can translate complex ideas into practical reality”

The programme will be based in Bristol and will start in October this year.

Systems Thinking for Sustainability

We are an independent research and education organisation that honours the work of E.F. Schumacher.

News

Facilitating real behaviour change: new Challenge Papers for May

The two latest additions to the Scumacher Institute Challenge Papers series continue our programme of critically exploring and expanding the heritage of E. F. Scumacher's thinking in the 21st Century.
Alice-Marie Archer, an Institute Research Fellow, argues in her paper Making Aquaponics Accessible that aquaponics - a sustainable, closed-loop food-production technique that involves growing fish and plants symbiotically – should be made accessible to urban communities in ways that effectively support their local economies while helping solve global food security problems.
In Language, Images & Boundaries, Schumacher Research Fellow and co-Director of Research Michael Clinton argues that for society to adopt truly sustainable lifestyles requires informed and effective decisions and actions by people across the whole social spectrum, making it essential that communication between those with specialist sustainability knowledge and expertise and the wider public uses language and images that promote better shared understandings of the issues and responsibilities involved.

view

Schumacher Institute Reports Series launched

The new Schumacher Institute Reports series sets out to provide accessible, essential and timely information on key themes in sustainability. They are prepared by Institute Research Fellows on the basis of literature reviews, original research and ongoing discussions within our local and global research communities. They also reflect the Institute's involvement in teaching and public outreach, as, along with our other resources and publications, they aim to offer a basis for informed communication to specialist and general audiences.

The 2012 report series opens with PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES: THE EARTH SYSTEM IN THE ANTHROPOCENE by Institute Research Fellow Steven Harris. This report uses the concept of planetary boundaries to frame an overview of the current status of the Earth system as revealed by a number of recent large-scale scientific studies. Findings from the studies converge on a common conclusion: that human activities are now the dominant force driving major planetary developments such as climate change, ocean acidification and biodiversity depletion – and that these changes offer serious challenges to further human development. It seems that the whole Earth system has irrevocably entered the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch characterised by large-scale human impacts on the Earth system. Since the last Ice Age most, if not all human cultures have developed at considerable cost to their supporting ecosystems, both locally and globally; the challenge for the current generation is to use our scientific understanding of the functioning and dynamics of the Earth system – and humanity's place within that system - to guide future human development along more equitable and ecologically sustainable pathways. [read full text]

view

Two New Challenge Papers published

The two latest additions to the Scumacher Institute Challenge Papers series continue to critically explore and expand the heritage of E. F. Scumacher's thinking in the 21st Century. Nicola Jones, an Institute Director, argues in her paper The Role of Work in a World Where People and Planet Matter that in order for work to become truly meaningful we need to radically rethink our current perspective on work, replacing a worldview based on difference, fragmentation and separation with one focused on interconnection. In Appropriate Nano-innovation, technology analyst, Schumacher Research Fellow and Post Growth Institute co-founder Donald Maclurcan argues that if nanotechnology is to play an appropriate role in addressing the health-related challenges faced the world's poorest people in the 21st Century, there will need to be a much greater focus on some of the more equitable ways in which it can be developed.

view

Schumacher Institute Challenge Papers Series

This new series of short papers by Schumacher Institute staff, fellows and associates aims to challenge, provoke and stimulate discussion. Each paper raises a practical or theoretical challenge for the sustainability movement and presents the author's personal take on the issue... read more

view

Sustainability Toolkit

Sustainability Toolkit 2012
Final tasters sessions

Bristol
6.15pm, Tuesday 3rd January
St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW
Toolkit starts – 17th January

London
The Hub, 34b York Way, Kings Cross, London N1 9AB
Toolkit starts – 18th January

Email martin@schumacherinstitute.org.uk to book a space, for more information or to apply to join the programme.

You can find details about fees and how to apply here

view

Welcome

Current projects

Bristol’s Green Roots

SUSTAINABILITY TOOLKIT

MASTERS IN MANAGING SUSTAINABILITY AND UNCERTAINTY

Systems Thinking for Sustainability

News