Global goals only work when they fit local life
Sustainia Academy is a Glasgow-based academy helping organisations in the Middle East turn the Sustainable Development Goals into practice that respects local values, regulation and priorities.
Why we started
Across our careers we saw the same pattern. Organisations signed up to global sustainability goals with real commitment, then struggled to turn them into programmes that worked on the ground. The frameworks were sound. The fit was not. Global language met local culture, values and institutions, and too often the result was fragmented projects, low local ownership and slow progress.
We founded Sustainia Academy to close that gap. We bring tested practice from Scotland and the wider UK, adapt it carefully to the Middle East, and build the skills of the people who will carry the work forward long after we have gone.
Every community able to reach its own version of sustainable prosperity
Progress on the SDGs that is owned locally, measured honestly and built to last.
Build the people, evidence and tools that make sustainability work locally
Through learning programmes, serious games, community research and practical advice.
Adapt. Read the context. Reach further.
A chameleon changes to suit its surroundings without becoming something else. Each eye moves on its own, so it can watch two directions at once: for us, the global and the local. It judges distance precisely before it acts, and it reaches further than its size suggests.
That is the attitude we bring to every project.
What we hold ourselves to
Context first
We adapt to the place and people, never the other way round.
Evidence over opinion
Decisions rest on data and on listening to the people affected.
Learning that sticks
Practice, games and real cases beat slides every time.
Local ownership
Success means local people lead the work when we step back.
The people behind the Academy
Ali Eizaldeen
Ali is a social sustainability consultant with more than 15 years of experience with foundations, charities, companies and government agencies. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration and is a Certified Management Consultant, Certified Sustainability Consultant and Certified Professional Facilitator, with certification in Impact Measurement and Management for the SDGs.
He leads the Academy’s advisory work, including community needs assessments and the Sustainable Trustee programme. Ali also founded the Sahel Public Diplomacy Centre.
Abdelsalam Alkhateeb
Abdelsalam is co-founder of SustainiA Games, a serious games and simulation studio that builds learning experiences on the SDGs and national development goals.
At the Academy he leads game-based learning, including the SDGs Game, and brings experience of designing programmes for audiences across the Gulf.
Organisations our team has worked with
Globally connected, locally rooted
Behind the founders is a network of associate consultants in ten countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Malaysia, Japan and Colombia. Each project brings together the specialists it needs, with at least one person who knows the local context well.
We also work with specialised companies, regional and international organisations, and universities, so that every project draws on current research and practice.
Based in Glasgow. Working across the Middle East.
Talk to us about a programme, a game session or an assessment.