The Grand Challenges lecture series is delighted to welcome its next speaker Keele University Chancellor Jonathon Porritt, co-founder of the UK’s leading sustainable development charity Forum for the Future.

The Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences (ILAS) Grand Challenges Lecture series explores complex questions which confront local, national, regional and global communities. These grand challenges will require creative and innovative interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration to suggest and predict possible resolutions.

About the lecture

It looks as if the 2015 Paris Agreement will be ratified by the end of the year – and that’s the single most positive development in recent times by way of moving us towards a more sustainable world. So let’s celebrate that!

But, in reality, the war we’re still waging against the natural world to squeeze out the last few drops of business-as-usual economic growth, continues unabated. Instead of addressing the long-term consequences of today’s unsustainable model of progress, there’s always another short-term crisis for the politicians to focus on.

So how can sustainability activists and professional change their messaging to transform today’s massively destructive economic orthodoxy? How can we build on all the brilliant things that are already under way in the margins to accelerate transformation in the mainstream? Today’s sustainability narrative simply isn’t working – so how do we do it differently, more creatively, and so much more effectively?

About Jonathon Porritt

Jonathon Porritt, co-founder of Forum for the Future, is an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development. Established in 1996, Forum for the Future is now the UK’s leading sustainable development charity. The Forum has a growing presence in the United States, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.

In addition he is President of The Conservation Volunteers, a Non-Executive Director of Willmott Dixon Holdings, a Trustee of Ashden, and a Director of Collectively (an online platform celebrating sustainable innovation). He was formerly Director of Friends of the Earth, co-chair of the Green Party and as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission until 2009, he spent nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers.

Jonathon was installed as the Chancellor of Keele University in February 2012. He is also Visiting Professor at Loughborough University and UCL. Recent books are ‘Capitalism As If The World Matters’ (2007) and ‘The World We Made’(2013) - which seeks to inspire people about the prospects of a sustainable world in 2050. Jonathon received a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.

This lecture is free and all are welcome to attend.

Refreshments will be available from 4.30pm onwards.

For more information and to book, please visit the ILAS Grand Challenges website

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