Research for environment and sustainable development
Active participation in the development towards a sustainable society is part of KTH’s responsibility. This includes contributing to the shift towards sustainable technical and social systems that meet our needs, such as our needs for food and drink, warmth, housing, transportation, communication and relaxation. With around 50 research teams working within the field of the environment and sustainable development, KTH’s operations act as a driving force within this shift by improving, developing, analysing and evaluating society’s and industry’s resources.
KTH has extensive, active and broad operations within the environment and sustainable development.
Research within sustainable development is characterised by its broad nature, and cannot normally be carried out within a single discipline. It requires collaboration between researchers with different fields of expertise, and between researchers and representatives from industry and society. A systems perspective is often essential, and this research is therefore often carried out in networks and groups with a reach both within and beyond KTH.
KTH has strategic research platforms to increase cooperation within its environment and sustainable development research and research education. The networks that KTH’s sustainability researchers are involved in are global networks involving hundreds of research teams around the world, from both leading universities and industrial companies.
A number of units within KTH have the environment and sustainable development as their main perspective. Here, cutting-edge research is carried out into methods and tools for assessing and evaluating the effects of products and decision-making processes. Other groups work to gain a better understanding of the interaction between technical systems and nature, or to study global relationships and climatic effects within our energy supply systems.
Sustainable development is a key aspect of the research carried out by many additional groups. This could involve improving the environmental performance of industrial processes, vehicles, buildings or supply systems. Other researchers at KTH study the environment and sustainable development from historical and philosophical perspectives. For example, KTH is home to Sweden’s only professor of environmental history.