At IERD we believe that certain values, beliefs and principles are essential for achieving sustainable development. These values motivate IERD staff, they underlie our work, and we aim to uphold and promote them:
 Freedom to express, inquire into, and debate issues and ideas.
 Social justice, particularly to respect and secure human rights and to empower the poor and marginalized.
 Democracy and full participation in decision-making and governance
 Pluralism, interdependence, and mutual respect, recognizing value differences.
 An ecological perspective that recognizes both the dynamism and adaptability of natural systems and the limits to resource use and waste generation.
Rights of individuals and communities to control the resources and other assets on which they rely, free from arbitrary expropriation

At IERD, our work towards sustainable development is also guided by its core organizational values. They describe both internal culture and external relations:
 Consistency – to ‘practice what we preach’ by upholding the above sustainable development values in our work
 Commitment – to understand and influence policy and practice towards
sustainable development
 Independence – to be open-minded in our research, and to avoid being unduly influenced by single interests.
 Integrity and credibility – to use sound science and consultation methods as the basis for honest advocacy, in collaboration with partners.
 Inclusiveness – to foster a diversity of perspectives and knowledge systems, and the building of trust and consensus, working in partnership with marginalized/poor groups, leaders and innovators in sustainable development.
 Innovation – to support stakeholder involvement in processes of technical and institutional innovation focused on poverty and environmental problems.
 Linking perspectives and interests – South and North; globalised and localized; government, civil society and to private sector; environment and development; long term and short term.
 Strategically engaged – to respond to priority needs, threats and ideas in a well-informed, analytical and creative manner.
 Continuous improvement – of IERD’s composition and balance of governance and partnerships, service provision, and quality and timeliness of outputs.
 Transparency – to be clear about what we do, how we work, who we work with, and how we get our funding.