SEI strategy 2025–29

The SEI strategy 2025–29 focuses on accelerating the implementation of climate and environmental goals through three primary impact areas: climate transitions, nature and resources, and health and wellbeing. The institute aims to move beyond goal-setting to action by boosting research on implementation, exploring emerging topics like critical raw materials and AI, and strengthening research-to-policy networks. Operationally, SEI seeks to enhance its 'One SEI' approach to integrate its distributed regional centres and diversify its funding to ensure financial resilience.

• SEI has introduced 'accelerating implementation' as a new strategic outcome to address the urgent need to move from climate and environment goals to effective action on the ground.
• The institute identifies five key global challenges: the urgency of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution; deepening social inequity; the need for reformed international cooperation; the rapid scaling of sustainable technologies; and competition for land and critical raw materials.
• SEI will prioritize innovative research on emerging topics, specifically focusing on the sustainability dimensions of AI, critical raw materials and mining, and the intersection of environment, defence, and human security.
• Within the 'Climate transitions' impact area, SEI aims to accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to renewables, support net-zero sectoral strategies, mitigate methane and black carbon, and enhance global resilience through transboundary risk management.
• The 'Nature and resources' priority focuses on ecosystem-based water management, tackling deforestation via supply chain transparency, marine spatial planning, and the governance of critical raw materials (CRMs) to support a circular material system.
• The 'Health and wellbeing' impact area targets gender and social equity, sustainable urban planning for clean air and green spaces, climate-resilient WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) systems, and the transition to sustainable food systems.
• SEI intends to strengthen its 'One SEI' approach to better integrate its distributed centre structure, promoting inter-centre research programs and pooled skills to provide a stronger offer to partners.
• To ensure financial resilience, SEI aims for a balanced funding structure where unrestricted core funding remains between 20% and 35% of total turnover, while diversifying into philanthropic grants and competitive research funding.
• The institute has set a specific environmental target to reduce air travel emissions by 50% in tonnes of CO2-equivalent per full-time equivalent (FTE) by 2030, compared to 2017 levels.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2024). SEI strategy 2025–29. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/sei-strategy-2025-2029-20250916.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. SEI strategy 2025–29. 2024. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/sei-strategy-2025-2029-20250916.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=SEI strategy 2025–29 |date=November 2024 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/sei-strategy-2025-2029-20250916.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2024sei, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{SEI strategy 2025–29}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2024}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/sei-strategy-2025-2029-20250916.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }