Sustainability and behavioural change: a discussion

Sustainability and behavioural change is on at the Malaysia Auditorium, Centre Building, LSE on Thursday 5 November, from 6.30pm to 8pm. It's a discussion that launches a new issue of the LSE Public Policy Review devoted to how we understand sustainability, the systemic shifts needed to realise it, and whether those shifts are actually viable in practice.

The panel brings together policy and academic experts to debate incremental versus transformative pathways to a sustainable planet. They'll be asking how large-scale pro-environmental behavioural change can be fostered, and what challenges stand in the way. It's the kind of conversation that moves from the big-picture theory of how we change a whole society down to the practical hurdles of getting people to actually do it.

On the panel are Dr Liam Beiser-McGrath, Dr Kate Laffan, Baroness Parminter and Elizabeth J Z Robinson, with Professor Liam Delaney chairing. Baroness Parminter is a member of the House of Lords and a leading voice on environmental policy in the UK Parliament, and she's the former chair of the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee, so she brings a good deal of first-hand political experience to the table.

The session is hosted by LSE's School of Public Policy and the Global School of Sustainability, the university's interdisciplinary centre for sustainability research impact. It's also part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2026, which runs from 17 October to 7 November. It's open to the public in person and online, with a live stream available via LSE Live, so you can either head into the Malaysia Auditorium or catch it from home. It runs from 6.30pm to 8pm on Thursday 5 November.