Designing strategies & building capacities for a sustainable environment.

No matter where we live, a healthy natural environment is vital to the long-term prosperity of everyone. Environmental systems provide us with a wide range of benefits, and as we look to the future, societies need to ensure that they are restored and sustained.

To help with these challenges, we provide advice and services to decision makers and the public on the management of natural capital and the contribution that nature makes to human well-being.

Our expertise covers such topics as  the sustainable management of environmental resources at the landscape scale. The work we have undertaken has dealt with the assessment of ecosystem services, and the development of tools and methods for sustainability appraisal, strategic planning and environmental valuation. Our aim has been to support the development of evidence-based policy and management by providing access to the best and most up-to-date science that is needed to design strategies for sustainability.

Although most of our work over the last three decades has largely dealt with national and international issues (see ‘Global Research’ tab), our current focus is now moving towards the local scale. Current initiatives  involve developing and testing sustainable land management methods, the cultivation of traditional fruit, flower and vegetable varieties, and public engagement with nature.