The core mission of the GSSD Consortium is to reduce knowledge gaps between industrial and developing countries in decision-making for sustainability by:
 

• Contributing to global policy formation through a range of targeted knowledge-based stakeholder deliberations

• Creating a virtual “knowledge-bank” on sustainable development drawing on the powerful but disparate and unconnected knowledge bases worldwide.

• Encouraging  “knowledge-brokerage” as well as networking and transaction facilities to help close the gap between ”demand” and  “supply” of knowledge, and between prevailing “problems” and potential “solutions” and

• Enhancing potentials for implementation and feedback through knowledge-based policy dialogues at all levels and in all contexts

• Helping to help drive policy on sustainable development, based on shared knowledge, new technology frontiers, and the consolidating efforts of partners 

Since knowledge is power, the guiding principle of GSSD Consortium is this: Empowering people and institutions by strengthening the 3 C’s and targeting decision and policy. 

In practice this means reinforcing Connectivity, improving Content, and building greater Capacity – and mobilizing these for decision and policy

The Consortium is designed to facilitate inputs into the policy process and shape the formulation, and implementation, of policy on environment and sustainable development at all levels-- global, regional, national and local -- consistent with the participants’ interests. 
Reducing the gap between knowledge for sustainability, on the one hand, and inputs into policy deliberations, on the other, is a natural extension – a necessary corollary – of the core mission.

As an MIT-led initiative, the GSSD Consortium, will be shaped and directed by it’s founding members representing the three elements of the Technology Triangle, namely: 
 

Governmental Institutions: consisting of select sponsors of the MIT Symposia on Global Accords for Sustainable Development

Business & Industry Partners: drawn from the range of current collaborators

Research Institutions: Project-based affiliation targeted to focused research, policy analysis, or strategic thinking 
 

The Consortium builds on the existing GSSD multidisciplinary knowledge base and on its meta-knowledge network, which consists of roughly 200 institutions whose holdings are in the GSSD database. Central among these are institutions that serve as:
 

Leading Knowledge Providers: that represent “best” quality, reliability, and coverage in specialized areas

Hubs of Specialized Networks: that focus on the science and policy of specific global problems, such as the loss of biological diversity, for example

Leaders of Regional Networks: that represent key stakeholders
In the private or public sectors

• Facilitating access to knowledge through the consolidation of meta-networking systems on a global basis

• Strengthening enabling mechanisms for knowledge development and access on a global basis;

• Engaging in the Leadership Dialogues of high level representatives forums of leaders across international institutions in order to highlight (and facilitate) areas of synergy and common response

• Contributing to the GSSD Consortium Conference highlighting innovative products, processes, or initiatives

Providing direct inputs to the Consortium’s Policy Driven Model.