Harriet Bulkeley

Durham

Harriet’s work is concerned with the politics and governance of environmental issues. She has a particular interest in climate change and the roles of cities and other non-state actors in responding to this global challenge. In her work on urban sustainability, Harriet has focused on questions of energy, smart grids, infrastructure, housing, mobility, waste and most recently nature and biodiversity. Throughout her work, questions of social and environmental justice are to the fore. Harriet is currently Project Co-ordinator for the H2020 Smart Cities and Communities programme NATURVATION project (2016 – 2020). Involving a team of 80 researchers from 14 institutions in six European countries, the project seeks to understand the role that nature-based solutions can play in responding to urban sustainability challenges. Through this project Harriet is exploring how and why urban nature has come to matter for the governing of environmental challenges, the ways in which urban experimentation with nature is taking place, what it means to mainstream nature in the city, and how such interventions can lead to transformative change for urban futures. With the REINVENT project, Harriet is examining the potential and challenges of deep decarbonisation in the ‘hard to reach’ parts of the carbon economy – meat, milk, plastics, paper and steel. Here Harriet’s research has contributed to developing an understanding of what the politics of decarbonisation entail and specifically exploring the role of the finance sector in low carbon transitions.