Category Archives: Research

This report – the first of the Cohort 2040 project and published with the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) – explores the huge challenge that emerging leaders of the millennial and younger generations could soon inherit. It argues they will have to be better prepared to continue the struggle for a more sustainable, equitableContinue reading “The Cohort 2040 Challenge (IPPR)”

Movements change the world. Throughout history, loosely organised networks of individuals and organisations have sought changes to societies – and won. From the abolitionist struggle and campaigns for voting rights to #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, the impact of movements can be seen everywhere. Over the last year, IPPR and the Runnymede Trust have sought to understandContinue reading “Making change: What works? (IPPR)”

The final report of our Environmental Justice Commission The Environmental Justice Commission was established in May 2019 in recognition that action to address the accelerating climate and nature emergencies can be about more than staving off the worst; it can be about imagining a better world which we can build together.  To realise this visionContinue reading “Fairness and opportunity: A people-powered plan for the green transition (IPPR)”

1st December 2020 The emergency measures undertaken in response to the COIVD-19 pandemic constitute an unprecedented break from the norms and practice of the prevailing political-economic paradigm—the predominant set of economic theory, policies and narratives. Public health has always been a major driver of changes in political economy because it is a systems-focused approach, providingContinue reading “Change only through crisis? Reflections on strategies for paradigm shift in an age of coronavirus and environmental breakdown (Forum for a New Economy)”

7th October 2020 Environmental breakdown is accelerating and poses an unprecedented threat to our political system. This system is a key enabler of environmental breakdown, the major drivers of which include chronic short-termism, a failure to recognise and act on systemic problems, and a failure to integrate environmental concerns throughout policy. This challenge comes atContinue reading “A new politics for the era of environmental breakdown (IPPR)”

24th June 2020 Environmental breakdown is the defining challenge of our time. This is the final report of a major research programme – responding to environmental breakdown – investigating the implications of the global environmental crisis for politics and policymaking. A new approach to policymaking is needed. In response, this paper defines overall conditions forContinue reading “We are not ready: Policymaking in the age of environmental breakdown – Final report (IPPR)”

5th May 2020 Elements of the shift to embedded liberalism are of interest for those seeking to understand how political-economic paradigms shift or to precipitate such a shift today. Two policy programmes were particularly important: structural reform of the global financial system, manifest in the creation of the Bretton Woods system; and a shift inContinue reading “The Gradual Encroachment of Ideas: Lessons from the paradigm shift to embedded liberalism (Forum for a New Economy)”

22nd November 2019 Environmental breakdown is accelerating and poses an unprecedented threat to international cooperation. A new positive-sum model of international cooperation is needed, which should seek to realise a more sustainable, just and prepared world.  This necessarily requires communities and countries to better recognise their cumulative contribution to environmental breakdown, and their current capabilityContinue reading “Our responsibility: A new model of international cooperation for the era of environmental breakdown (IPPR)”

17th September 2019 Younger generations, in addition to being economically worse off than their parents, face a future of unprecedented environmental breakdown. They will disproportionately bear the burden of having to rapidly transform economic systems in order to decelerate environmental breakdown while withstanding its increasingly destabilising consequences; an unprecedented challenge. Leaders in older generations are failingContinue reading “Inheriting the Earth? The unprecedented challenge of environmental breakdown for younger generations (IPPR)”

1st September 2019 I was a contributor to a major report from Europe for a Green New Deal on how to realise a sustainable and just green new deal for Europe.