Dame Henrietta L. Moore & Sir Charles Godfray in conversation: "Rethinking planetary prosperity: are we measuring what we value?"

04 June 2021

Portrait of Professor Sir Charles Godfray

with Professor Sir Charles Godfray
 Director, Oxford Martin School

Professor Charles Godfray was appointed Director of the Oxford Martin School on 1 February 2018. He is a population biologist with broad interests in the environmental sciences and has published in fundamental and applied areas of ecology, evolution...

The recently published Dasgupta Review has made a strong call for the fundamental rebuilding of economic models in ways that inherently value Nature.

These are welcome findings, coming at a time when existing economic structures, extractive systems and patterns of consumption are eroding ecological resilience and exceeding planetary limits.

Yet the imperative for new economies that value biodiversity and ecosystem health as foundational for human wellbeing leaves us with a host of challenges and opportunities centred on how we may best build alternative economic infrastructures in inclusive and sustainable ways. This endeavour is unavoidably bound up with questions of how different communities understand social and ecological prosperity and how this should be researched and measured.

Grounded in the innovative research of the Institute for Global Prosperity at UCL, this discussion between Professor Dame Henrietta L. Moore and Professor Sir Charles Godfray takes stock of how research traditions within the social sciences that are attuned to the diversity of human livelihoods, value systems and collaborative research methods are of urgent necessity for designing new socio-natural economies and planetary prosperity for all.