Abstract

Noble laureate Frederick Soddy complained that the economy had a broken money system and didn’t pay attention to resources and energy. That was 1926. Can the idea and practice of a circular economy finally make us whole? An economy that fits the real world, creates a wealth of flows and new avenues for innovation… or is there something missing?

Bio

Ken Webster is Head of Innovation at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a leading think-tank on the circular economy. Long aware of the limitations of a linear ‘take, make and dispose’ economy and deeply influenced by the cradle-to-cradle design philosophy, he has spent many years contributing to the debate around how the economy might better fit real world systems while creating new forms of abundance. His latest book is Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows. Ken is a visiting fellow at Cranfield University and Honorary Teaching Fellow at the University of Bradford School of Management.

For this lecture, Ken will be joined by Kate Raworth. Kate is a renegade economist focused on the rewriting of economics to make it fit for addressing this century’s realities. She is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries which has gained widespread traction in international policy debates on sustainable development. Kate is a senior visiting research associate and lecturer at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, and a senior associate of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. In 2014 she was named by The Guardian as “one of the top ten tweeters on economic transformation”. She blogs about Doughnut Economics at www.kateraworth.com and tweets @KateRaworth.

 To reserve a place, email s.wissing@imperial.ac.uk