Imperial College London

DrMikeTennant

Faculty of Natural SciencesCentre for Environmental Policy

Vice-Dean (Education), Principal Teaching Fellow
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7708m.tennant Website

 
 
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Location

 

105Weeks BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Publication Type
Year
to

32 results found

Angheloiu C, Vora S, Tennant M, 2023, Navigating knowledge systems to address resilience challenges: contributions of communities of practice, Handbook of Transdisciplinarity: Global Perspectives, Editors: Lawrence, Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, ISBN: 9781802207835

Minerva’s owl always flies at dusk is the old saying – wisdom always emerges in hindsight. This paradox has crippling effects in dealing with the challenges posed by the urgent need to persist, adapt, and transform in the face of increasing effects of climate change and to strengthen individual, household, community, institutional, or system-wide resilience. The term resilience is a broad umbrella concept that connects traditionally disparate disciplines, such as engineering, psychology, urban planning, ecology or community development. While its meanings are still under construction, the use of the term has skyrocketed and has led to increasing gaps between resilience knowledge and its implementation. There is a pressing need not only to investigate how these gaps emerge, but to develop interventions to address them. This chapter charts the proliferation of communities of practice (CoPs) in transdisciplinary contexts such as resilience. We present two case studies – the Resilience Knowledge Coalition and the Urban Resilience CoP – and explore their evolution to date, lessons learnt, and limitations. Our discussion focuses on cross-cutting issues and tensions, such as the connection between the depth and breadth of scale, impact evaluation, issues of power and trust, as well as the persisting challenge of valuing and integrating practitioner, local and traditional knowledge.

Book chapter

Clube RKM, Tennant M, 2023, What would a human-centred 'social' Circular Economy look like? Drawing from Max-Neef's Human-Scale Development proposal, JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION, Vol: 383, ISSN: 0959-6526

Journal article

Blomsma F, Tennant M, Ozaki R, 2022, Making sense of circular economy: Understanding the progression from idea to action, BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, ISSN: 0964-4733

Journal article

Clube RKM, Tennant M, 2022, Social inclusion and the circular economy: The case of a fashion textiles manufacturer in Vietnam, Business Strategy and Development, Vol: 5, Pages: 4-16, ISSN: 2572-3170

There has been significant growth in interest in the circular economy (“CE”) concept as a transformative solution to the prevailing linear economy, helping to solve various economic, environmental and social challenges. Nevertheless, pertinent issues such as societal inclusion, well-being and equity remain peripheral in the contemporary CE debate. Fulfilling human needs has been recognised as a prerequisite for sustainable development and was implicitly and explicitly prevalent in parts of the seminal material on which the CE is based. However, the contemporary use of the concept by business has left it bereft of any convincing evidence that a CE will satisfy needs in a radically different way to the existing linear economy. As a result, there are few practical cases for business learning, and even fewer in a developing world context. This study explores a unique business venture implemented by a Vietnam-based denim manufacturer, which simultaneously tackles two key development challenges: The inclusion of vulnerable communities and sustainable resource use. The venture employs persons with disabilities and utilises textile by-products from the core production to produce a range of upcycled items (e.g., bags, cushion covers etc). This forms part of a broader company-wide social sustainability and CE strategy. We utilise Max-Neef's Human-Scale Development proposal as a lens explore how the venture can support need satisfaction of these employees while being environmentally sustainable. We seek to provide a compelling practical case to illustrate how social impact and circularity can be simultaneously enhanced at the micro-level.

Journal article

Blomsma F, Tennant M, Brennan G, 2021, Exploring resource-service systems-Beyond product-service systems and toward configurations of circular strategies, business models, and actors, Circular Economy and Sustainability: Volume 1: Management and Policy, Pages: 127-144, ISBN: 9780128198179

Resource-service systems (RSS), such as product-service systems (PSSs) and material-service systems (MSS), are services that have a resource component. Current RSS approaches, although helpful, are insufficient to understand the change that is needed within and between businesses to address structural waste and to capture its value: (1) current RSS approaches do not engage in sufficient detail with resources, waste, and circular strategies, and (2) they lack the capacity to investigate actor configurations that facilitate circularity across different lifecycle stages. To address these gaps, we explore the potential of RSS using the Resource States and the “Big Five” structural wastes frameworks, with illustrative cases drawn from the automotive sector. Through this, we develop an analytical approach that integrates the current RSS literature and connects it firmly with circular economy (CE).

Book chapter

Aurisicchio M, Zeeuw Van Der Laan A, Tennant M, 2020, Material-Service Systems for Sustainable Resource Management, EcoDesign 2019

Conference paper

Clube RKM, Tennant M, 2020, The Circular Economy and human needs satisfaction: Promising the radical, delivering the familiar, Ecological Economics, Vol: 177, Pages: 1-12, ISSN: 0921-8009

The Circular Economy (“CE”) is gaining momentum as an approach to addressing sustainability challenges. The CE is framed as a transformative model with economic, environmental and social benefits. Nevertheless, the degree of circularity in the global economy is low and critics highlight that current interpretations fall short in delivering promised results regarding the social dimension of sustainability. Instead economic growth is elevated above more radical socio-environmental transformation. This exploratory paper adopts a human needs approach, using Max-Neef’s Human-Scale Development proposal as an analytical lens to explore the contentious social dimension of the CE. The study revisits four seminal texts which are commonly referenced as influencing the CE’s conceptual development: The Blue Economy; Cradle to Cradle; Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development; and, The Performance Economy. These texts were analysed to identify satisfiers of human needs. This provides insight into how inclusive earlier visualisations were of encompassing human needs, and how these compare to the current CE direction. We argue that satisfiers of human needs are embedded, to differing extents, in some of the early CE depictions. Nevertheless, the CE concept has selectively developed, neglecting radical, human-centric transformational aspects and instead adheres to a familiar pathway of business-led economic growth.

Journal article

Angheloiu C, Tennant M, 2020, Urban futures: Systemic or system changing interventions? A literature review using Meadows' leverage points as analytical framework, Cities, Vol: 104, ISSN: 0264-2751

Urban-led change for sustainability is a key site of intervention in delivering the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals. Within this broad discourse, four umbrella concepts have emerged in recent decades: urban sustainability, urban transitions, urban transformation and urban resilience.This literature review aims to offer a qualitative assessment of the types of interventions currently being advocated for in academic-led literature. Firstly, the paper presents an overview of the concepts and summarises current gaps; secondly, it uses Donella Meadows' Leverage Points as analytical framework to categorise and discuss interventions supported in the literature.Our findings indicate that although the literature advocates for systemic change towards sustainability as an outcome of a large palette of urban interventions, less consideration is given to the means of achieving these. The findings highlight the need to focus on processes as much as on outcomes when advocating, devising or implementing interventions. This requires a process of understanding and negotiating trade-offs and the different worldviews and values that underpin them. Addressing this entails going beyond technocratic skills through cultivating reflexivity, effective communities of practice and new forms of organising for knowledge production, as well as interrogate our roles and agency as urban researchers.

Journal article

Blomsma F, Tennant M, 2020, Circular economy: Preserving materials or products? Introducing the Resource States framework, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol: 156, Pages: 1-13, ISSN: 0921-3449

This paper draws on material entropy and life cycle thinking to develop the Resource States framework. This framework clarifies and systematises the language around resources within the circular economy (CE) discourse, such that insights from different tools and approaches that investigate different aspects of CE can be aggregated and a more comprehensive picture of complex circular systems can be compiled. Currently, progress of the CE discourse is hampered by a lack of a clear and systematic approach to what we refer to as the particle state and the product state. That is: whether to approach resource circulation from the perspective of elements, molecules or materials; or whether to adopt the perspective of products or finished goods. As these two perspectives are often implicit in current contributions to CE, we first articulate both approaches, before assessing their respective contributions and limitations. Next, we draw on material entropy and life cycle thinking to integrate both perspectives and develop a more comprehensive way of conceptualising resource states, in the form of the Resource States framework. We furthermore present how this framework can be used A) to clearly distinguish between circular strategies, as well as between different implementation scenarios of the same circular strategy; B) to systematically explore and map synergies and trade-offs between combinations of circular strategies; and C) to link circular strategies with structural waste present in a given context. Lastly, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the framework and reflect on how it advances the CE field.

Journal article

Clube RKM, Tennant M, 2020, Exploring garment rental as a sustainable business model in the fashion industry: Does contamination impact the consumption experience?, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, ISSN: 1472-0817

Journal article

Angheloiu C, Sheldrick L, Tennant M, 2020, Future tense: exploring dissonance in young people’s images of the future through design futures methods, Futures, Vol: 117, ISSN: 0016-3287

The lack of progress in the face of complex sustainability challenges has in part been attributed to a lack of imagination, rather than awareness. Nurturing and surfacing pluralistic alternative futures, as well imagining the pathways that might get us there, are key processes in bridging this imagination gap. The emerging field of design futures provides methods and tools to develop narratives as well as tangible artefacts depicting products, services and experiences set within alternative futures. These methods build on long-established interdisciplinary inquiries into how and why people develop images of the futures. The present research aims to explore young people’s images of the future (set in 2068 and 2038) through design futures methods. This paper presents the outcomes of a series of workshops in which over 70 young people (aged 16–17) imagined a series of alternative futures and developed artefacts that support the pathways towards these futures. The results reveal that while design futures methods are effective in developing and interrogating collective future imaginaries, deeper challenges rooted in the homogeneity of dominant Western imaginaries and the hyper–individualistic turn of late–modernity remain.

Journal article

Dieckmann E, Sheldrick L, Tennant M, Myers R, Cheeseman Cet al., 2020, Analysis of barriers to transitioning from a linear to a circular economy for end of life materials: a case study for waste feathers, Sustainability, Vol: 12, Pages: 1725-1725, ISSN: 2071-1050

This research aimed to develop a simple but robust method to identify the key barriers to the transition from a linear to a circular economy (CE) for end of life products or material. Nine top-tier barrier categories have been identified that influence this transition. These relate to the basic material properties and product characteristics, the availability of suitable processing technology, the environmental impacts associated with current linear management, the organizational context, industry and supply chain issues, external drivers, public perception, the regulatory framework and the overall economic viability of the transition. The method provides a novel and rapid way to identify and quantitatively assess the barriers to the development of CE products. This allows mitigation steps to be developed in parallel with new product design. The method has been used to assess the potential barriers to developing a circular economy for waste feathers generated by the UK poultry industry. This showed that transitioning UK waste feathers to circularity faces significant barriers across numerous categories and is not currently economically viable. The assessment method developed provides a novel approach to identifying barriers to circularity and has potential to be applied to a wide range of end of life materials and products.

Journal article

Angheloiu C, Sheldrick L, Tennant M, Chaudhuri Get al., 2019, Future tense: harnessing design futures methods to facilitate young people’s exploration of transformative change for sustainability, World Futures Review, Vol: 12, Pages: 104-122, ISSN: 1946-7567

The research starts from the premise that as the world is changing rapidly and in nonlinear ways, we are educating future practitioners for jobs and contexts that don’t yet exist. They instead need to be equipped to work for and with uncertainty to be able to grapple with the scale and pace of emergent change. The fields of design and futures studies bring significant insights to this challenge, including an array of methods, tools, and frameworks for prospective and systemic explorations of alternative futures. The emerging field of design futures can be framed as ways to develop and deploy prompts, artifacts, and narratives to critically interrogate tomorrow’s societal debates today; as such, it is intentional from the outset in its pursuit of preferable futures and therefore social and environmental justice. The process of imagining the future is an active, values-laden social practice, which requires a layered approach to a methodology to surface and challenge dominant patterns—making it an ideal approach for training the young people who will shape our future. This article reports on the design and delivery of participatory workshops that employ design futures methods to facilitate the exploration of transformative change for sustainability. These workshops were conducted with young people aged sixteen to seventeen to equip them to develop and explore alternative futures. The results suggest that design futures methods can facilitate participants from non-design backgrounds to develop alternative futures and artifacts that might sit within them. It was found that developing a sense of ownership was key to enabling participants to effectively reflect on alternative futures and their implications. Finally, the study highlights the potential for these methods to inform both design and sustainability pedagogy.

Journal article

Burgman MA, Tennant M, Voulvoulis N, Makuch K, Madani Ket al., 2018, Facilitating the transition to sustainable green chemistry, Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, Vol: 13, Pages: 130-136, ISSN: 2452-2236

Sustainable green chemistry depends on technically feasible, cost-effective and socially acceptable decisions by regulators, industry and the wider community. The discipline needs to embrace a new suite of tools and train proponents in their use. We propose a set of tools that will bridge the gap between technical feasibility and efficiency on one hand, and social preferences and values on the other. We argue that they are indispensable in the next generation of regulators and chemistry industry proponents.

Journal article

Brennan G, Tennant M, 2018, Sustainable value and trade-offs: exploring situational logics and power relations 1 in a UK brewery’s malt supply network business model, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol: 27, Pages: 621-630, ISSN: 0964-4733

Conceptualizing firms from a business ecosystem, value‐ or supply‐network perspective captures the boundary‐spanning nature of value creation. However, the relationship dynamics that enable or inhibit sustainable value creation, as well as the understanding of how to resolve trade‐offs in sustainable supply chain management, need to be better understood. To explore these, we present a comparative case study of how situational logics and power relations are embedded in business models within a UK brewer and its malt supply chain. The exploratory case illustrates how network‐centric business model innovation resolves the trade‐off between economic and environmental value through the prioritization of sustainability‐related ‘cultural’ resources. These findings suggest that organizations seeking to implement sustainable supply networks need to pay greater attention to how they use business model innovation to institutionalize situational logics that enable or inhibit sustainable value creation and resolve trade‐offs.

Journal article

Trolard F, Bourrié G, Baillieux A, Buis S, Chanzy A, Clastre P, Closet JF, Courault D, Dangeard ML, Di Virgilio N, Dussouilliez P, Fleury J, Gasc J, Géniaux G, Jouan R, Keller C, Lecharpentier P, Lecroart J, Napoleone C, Mohammed G, Olioso A, Reynders S, Rossi F, Tennant M, de Vicente Lopez Jet al., 2016, The PRECOS framework: Measuring the impacts of the global changes on soils, water, agriculture on territories to better anticipate the future., Journal of Environmental Management, Vol: 181, Pages: 590-601, ISSN: 0301-4797

In a context of increased land and natural resources scarcity, the possibilities for local authorities and stakeholders of anticipating evolutions or testing the impact of envisaged developments through scenario simulation are new challenges. PRECOS's approach integrates data pertaining to the fields of water and soil resources, agronomy, urbanization, land use and infrastructure etc. It is complemented by a socio-economic and regulatory analysis of the territory illustrating its constraints and stakes. A modular architecture articulates modeling software and spatial and temporal representations tools. It produces indicators in three core domains: soil degradation, water and soil resources and agricultural production. As a territory representative of numerous situations of the Mediterranean Basin (urban pressures, overconsumption of spaces, degradation of the milieus), a demonstration in the Crau's area (Southeast of France) has allowed to validate a prototype of the approach and to test its feasibility in a real life situation. Results on the Crau area have shown that, since the beginning of the 16th century, irrigated grasslands are the cornerstones of the anthropic-system, illustrating how successfully men's multi-secular efforts have maintained a balance between environment and local development. But today the ecosystem services are jeopardized firstly by urban sprawl and secondly by climate change. Pre-diagnosis in regions of Emilia-Romagna (Italy) and Valencia (Spain) show that local end-users and policy-makers are interested by this approach. The modularity of indicator calculations and the availability of geo-databases indicate that PRECOS may be up scaled in other socio-economic contexts.

Journal article

Lord S-F, Noye S, Ure J, Tennant M, Fisk Det al., 2016, Comparative review of building commissioning regulation: a quality perspective, Building Research & Information, Vol: 44, Pages: 630-643, ISSN: 0961-3218

Building regulations are an important policy instrument available to governments wishing to improve building energyefficiency, which should be a priority to policy-makers wishing to target cost-effective avenues in support of carbonabatementtargets. Meanwhile, building system commissioning has been recognized as a cost-effective measure to cutenergy consumption, but in practice commissioning quality can deliver less-than-satisfactory outcomes. Regulationneeds to better support commissioning outcomes. A five-grade commissioning scale is developed to assess the qualityof commissioning and propose a common language to assist with regulation setting. Using this scale, buildingregulation and polices related to new and refurbished building commissioning were analysed in comparative casestudies between jurisdictions England and California. This study finds that Californian regulations mandate a higherquality of commissioning and regulations that are more enforceable. The crucial elements to support bettercommissionedbuildings were identified as: outputs-focused regulation (not input based); regulation and processclarity; commissioning agents and building official training; as well as acknowledging the financial burden ofupholding more complex building regulations. For the full benefit of commissioning to be realized, policy andregulations for existing buildings will be required.

Journal article

Bocken NMP, Weissbrod I, Tennant M, 2016, Business Model Experimentation for Sustainability, 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Design and Manufacturing (SDM), Publisher: SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, Pages: 297-306, ISSN: 2190-3018

Conference paper

Tennant MG, 2015, Values-led entrepreneurship: Developing business models through the exercise of reflexivity, LOCAL ECONOMY, Vol: 30, Pages: 520-533, ISSN: 0269-0942

Journal article

Brennan G, Tennant M, Blomsma F, 2015, Business and production solutions: Closing loops and the circular economy, Sustainability: Key Issues, Pages: 219-239, ISBN: 9780415529853

Book chapter

Tennant M, Kensington S, 2013, Pragmatism, morphogenesis and industrial sustainability, Pages: 279-289

Population increase and climate change projections out to 2050 and beyond will constrain the way we live in the world. Materials will be scarce; most people will be living in urban centres that are hot, congested and polluted; extreme weather events threaten to disrupt global business operations. Consuming in a similar way as we do today will put unprecedented pressure on the biosphere and it is unlikely that the planet can support this level of exploitation. Manufacturing is a key activity that provides 14% worldwide employment and contributes 16% to global GDP. Future projections relating to the state of the planet threaten to undermine these activities on national and global scales as resources become scarce and society is required to emit very few GHGs. Manufacturers need to find new ways to make old things and make old things in new ways. Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach describes how reflexive agents transform the social and cultural systems they find themselves in, explicitly modelling the power relationships that constrain or enable action. Pragmatism allows us to critically posit a plurality of solutions towards a socially desirable future without having to worry about a singularly correct solution. It is brought to life by the individual through democratic discussion and creative action. While this speaks to agency the pragmatic discourse often explicitly neglects discussions of power. By bringing aspects of these two philosophies together in a pragmatic manner, I argue, we are able to design interventions that show promise in meeting the key challenges of our times.

Conference paper

Jennings A, Tennant M, 2007, Selection of molecules based on shape and electrostatic similarity: Proof of concept of "Electroforms", JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL INFORMATION AND MODELING, Vol: 47, Pages: 1829-1838, ISSN: 1549-9596

Journal article

Jennings A, Tennant M, 2006, Discovery strategies in a pharmaceutical setting: the application of computational techniques, EXPERT OPINION ON DRUG DISCOVERY, Vol: 1, Pages: 709-721, ISSN: 1746-0441

Journal article

Rowland P, Blaney FE, Smyth MG, Jones JJ, Leydon VR, Oxbrow AK, Lewis CJ, Tennant MG, Modi S, Eggleston DS, Chenery RJ, Bridges AMet al., 2006, Crystal structure of human cytochrome P450 2D6, JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol: 281, Pages: 7614-7622

Journal article

Aertgeerts K, Levin I, Shi LH, Snell GP, Jennings A, Prasad GS, Zhang YM, Kraus ML, Salakian S, Sridhar V, Wijnands R, Tennant MGet al., 2005, Structural and kinetic analysis of the substrate specificity of human fibroblast activation protein α, JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol: 280, Pages: 19441-19444

Journal article

Gangloff AR, Williams K, Paraselli BR, Wijesekera H, Bressi JC, Brown JW, Vu PH, Jennings AJ, Tennant M, Nowakowski J, Vaughn D, Caster C, Stafford JAet al., 2005, Synthesis and Sar of 3-(quinolin-2-yl)indolin-2-ones as kinase inhibitors: Crystallographic evidence for an unique binding conformation., 229th National Meeting of the American-Chemical-Society, Publisher: AMER CHEMICAL SOC, Pages: U129-U129, ISSN: 0065-7727

Conference paper

Jennings A, Tennant M, 2005, Discovery strategies in a BioPharmaceutical startup: Maximising your chances of success using computational filters, CURRENT PHARMACEUTICAL DESIGN, Vol: 11, Pages: 335-344, ISSN: 1381-6128

Journal article

Aertgeerts K, Ye S, Tennant MG, Kraus ML, Rogers J, Sang BC, Skene RJ, Webb DR, Prasad GSet al., 2004, Crystal structure of human dipeptidyl peptidase IV in complex with a decapeptide reveals details on substrate specificity and tetrahedral intermediate formation, PROTEIN SCIENCE, Vol: 13, Pages: 412-421, ISSN: 0961-8368

Journal article

Goodwill KE, Tennant MG, Stevens RC, 2001, High-throughput x-ray crystallography for structure-based drug design, Drug Discovery Today, Vol: 6, ISSN: 1359-6446

Knowledge of the 3D structure of proteins can play a key role in both understanding the biochemical function of protein targets, and developing small-molecule drugs that interact with these targets. This review will discuss recent advances in automation and miniaturization, which are making the determination of protein structures faster, more reliable, and more economical than has been possible historically.

Journal article

Tennant M, McRee DE, 2001, The first structure of a microsomal P450--implications for drug discovery., Curr Opin Drug Discov Devel, Vol: 4, Pages: 671-677, ISSN: 1367-6733

Although numerous microbial, soluble P450 structures have been known for some time, it is only recently that the first crystal structure of a microsomal, membrane-associated P450 has been determined. The structure gives an increased understanding of the membrane, substrate and reductase binding surfaces, and has enabled the modeling of other P450s with greater accuracy. Other milestones include the first determination of a true P450 drug target, CYP51, the determination of a thermophilic P450 and the structures of cryogenically trapped intermediates of the P450 reaction cycle.

Journal article

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