Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship Seminar Series welcomes Professor Laura Spence
As part of its ongoing Seminar Series, the Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship led by Professor Robert Blackburn, welcomed Professor Laura J Spence (Professor of Business Ethics & Sustainability, King’s College London) to the Management School on Wednesday 5 February for her talk entitled “Carrots, sticks, sermons, & congregations: Carbon reduction policy approaches for hard-to-reach small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) entrained in the carbon economy”.
Professor Spence gave a stimulating presentation on the challenges of designing and engaging carbon reduction policies for SMEs.
With around 5.5 million enterprises responsible for almost a half of non-household emissions, using industry examples, Professor Spence argued that existing carbon reduction policies are not fit for purpose and innovative approaches to reach these firms need to be deployed.
This generated a constructive discussion on how sustainability policies to reach a diverse SME population can be better formulated to raise take-up.
Professor Spence further explained “We are failing to avert catastrophic climate change and more radical approaches are needed to reach SMEs, which are so often overlooked in policy terms."
"We are taking a two-pronged approach. First, reformulating a fit-for-purpose typology of SMES designed around their relationship to the carbon economy.
"Second, we go beyond standard 'carrot, stick and sermons' approaches to policy to that of the 'congregation,' which we argue can better reach SMES by providing a space for dialogue and iterative policy making.
"We take inspiration from feminist policy to deepen our theorisation of congregation policy approaches to carbon reduction."
About the Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship
The Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship is a connected hub of excellence for people and organisations interested in entrepreneurship research, theory, policy, and practice.
Our mission is to develop and harness the power of entrepreneurship across our international collaborative network, through three pillars of activity: research, education, and impact.
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