Professor Aled Jones

Aled is Director of the Global Sustainability Institute. His research focuses on risks and opportunities in finance and governments from global resource trends such as food, energy and water.

[email protected]

Background

Aled is the inaugural Director of our Global Sustainability Institute (GSI). Over the past five years he has built the GSI from a good idea into an internationally recognised brand, with a group of 40 individuals, and over £4 million in external income won. He is one of the acknowledged global leaders in public-private finance related to the green economy. His work in climate finance has been recognised by the State of California and he has received a key to the city of North Little Rock, USA.

In 2013, Anglia Ruskin University won the International Sustainable Campus Network Award for integrating sustainability and the GSI was shortlisted for the EAUC Green Gown awards in two categories and the Lloyds of London Science of Risk Awards. Our Sustainability Strategy saw ARU shortlisted as a finalist for an Edie Sustainability Leaders Award 2017 for Sustainable Business of the Year, and helped secure Responsible Futures accreditation from the NUS in 2016.

Aled has recently been appointed a member of the UK-US Taskforce on the Impact of Extreme Weather on US/UK Food Security and was a President Bill Clinton Distinguished Lecturer. He chaired a working group on climate finance within the Capital Markets Climate Initiative (CMCI) on behalf of Greg Barker, the Minister for Climate Change in the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and sits on the steering group for CMCI. Aled is also a Managing Director for the P80 Group Foundation which, in 2012, signed the Little Rock Accord with Club de Madrid to help facilitate global investments into climate change solutions.

Aled has published numerous academic papers and was a guest editor of Sustainability. He is a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy and Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and elected member of the advisory group for the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges. Until 2014 he was regional treasurer and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is the Chair of Sustainability East, as well as of the East of England Alliance for Sustainability on their behalf.

Previously, Aled was Deputy Director at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, HRH Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, and Director of the Chevening Economics of Climate Change Programme (for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office). He was a founding member of the ClimateWise insurance principles.

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Research interests

Aled leads a number of research projects in climate finance, energy and behaviour, and resource management. His research particularly focuses on the finance sector and government and how they will respond to the impacts of global resource trends and climate change. He is currently leading a team to build a global model to explore political fragility from resource crisis.

Areas of research supervision

• Agent-based modelling for political risks
• Systems dynamics modelling for economic and financial risk
• Systemic finance risk for environment-food-water nexus
• Conflict from resource competition in Kenya
• India’s identity in climate change negotiations
• Smart city development in Hungary
• Transitions in energy systems in Nigeria
• Assessing fracking in the UK
• Innovation in the water sector
• Clean technology sector development

Teaching

Dissertation Module Leader, MSc Sustainability

Qualifications

• PhD, Cosmology, University of Cambridge
• BA/MA 1st class, Natural Science (Theoretical Physics), University of Cambridge
• PGCert (HE), Anglia Ruskin University

Memberships, editorial boards

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy (FHEA)>
• Fellow, Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (FRSA)
• Fellow, Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (FIMA)
• Elected Member of the Advisory Council, Environmental Association for Universities & Colleges (EAUC) 
• Board member, Green Economy Pathfinder LEP (Suffolk & Norfolk)
• Board member, European Structural and Investment Fund Sub Committee, Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough
• Board member, Sustainability East
• Editorial Board, World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

Consultancy

• Non-executive board member, Sustainability East
• Managing Director, P80 Group Foundation
• Aled regularly consults on international climate finance, in particular on public-private partnerships, for organisations like the UK Government and the World Bank. He also presents on climate change issues to corporates and governments

Author and editor

• Aled is author of several books, book chapters, entries in The A-Z of CSR, refereed papers, conference proceedings and international patent applications, as well as newspaper and magazine articles. He was lead author on the seminal report on resource constraints to the Actuarial Profession in 2013, and guest editor of a special issue of Sustainability, Creative Solutions to Big Challenges (ISSN 2071-1050)

Selected recent publications

Books and invited book chapters

Pasqualino, R. & Jones, A., 2020, ‘Resources, Financial Risk and the Dynamics of Growth: Systems and Society’, Routledge.

Jones, A., 2019, ‘Responsible Investment’, (chapter 19) in Soytas, U. & Sari, R. (eds.), ‘Routledge Handbook of Energy Economics’, Routledge.

Balint, L. & Jones, A., 2018, ‘Natural capital and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Ecosystem Services (IPBES)’, in Anderson, V. & Read R., (eds.), ‘Debating Nature’s Value: the concept of natural capital’, Palgrave Macmillan.

Mair, S., Jones, A., Ward, J., Christie, I., Druckman, A., & Lyon, F., 2018, ‘A Critical Review of the Role of Indicators in Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals’, Leal, W. (ed), Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research, World Sustainability Series, Springer.

Agboraw, E. & Jones, A., 2017, ‘Resource constraints and global growth: Evidence from the finance sector’, Palgrave Macmillan.

Saran, S. & Jones, A., 2016, ‘India’s climate change identity: between reality and perception’, Palgrave Macmillan.

Jóhannsdóttir, L., Wallace J., & Jones, A., 2012, 'Climate risk from primary insurance perspective', Managing climate change business risks and consequences: leadership for global sustainability, A volume in the Stoner/Wankel series on global sustainability, Palgrave Macmillan.

Refereed papers (selected)

Sole, J., Samso, R.,. Buchmann, K., Jones, A., Natalini, D., 2020, ‘Modelling the renewable transition: scenarios and pathways for a decarbonised future using pymedeas, a new open source energy systems model’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 132, 110105

Hafner, S., Monasterolo, I. Anger, A., & Jones, A., 2020, ‘Emergence of ‘new economics’ energy transition models: a review’, Ecological Economics, 177, 106779

Jones, A., Taylor, N., Hafner, S., Kitchen, J., 2020, ‘Finance for a future of sustainable prosperity’, AREA, https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12631

Malesios, C., Jones, N., Jones, A., 2020, ‘A change-point analysis of food price shocks’, Climate Risk Management, 27, 100208

Hafner, S., Jones, A., Anger, A., & Pohl, J., 2020, ‘Closing the green finance gap: a systems perspective’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, 26

Natalini, D., Bravo, G., Jones A., & Phillips, A., 2019, ‘Global food security and food riots - an agent based modelling approach’, Food Security, 11 (5), 1153

Pasqualino, R., Monasterolo, I., & Jones, A., 2019, ‘An integrated global food and energy security system dynamics model for addressing systemic risk’, Sustainability, 11(14), 3995

Hafner, S., James, O. & Jones, A., 2019, ‘A scoping literature review of barriers to investment in climate change solutions ’, Sustainability, 11 (11), 3201

Peberdy, E., Jones, A. & Green, D., 2019, ‘A Study into Public Awareness of the Environmental Impact of Menstrual Products and Product Choice’, Sustainability, 11 (2), 473

Emerton, P., & Jones, A., 2019, ‘The efficacy of sustainability related performance conditions in executive pay schemes’, Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 9 (1), 1

Perissi, I., Falsini, S., Bardi, U., Green, M., Jones, A., Natalini, D. & Sole, J., 2018, ‘European GHG emissions carbon budget: filling the trajectory gap’, Sustainability, 10 (11), 4225

Temel, J., Jones, A., Jones, N. & Balint, L., 2018, ‘Exploring limits of monetisation in protecting ecosystem services?’, Conservation Biology, 32 (5), 1048

Hiscock, K., & Jones, A., 2017, ‘Assessing the usefulness of the UK’s National Risk Register as a tool for regional risk management’, Sustainability, 9 (11), 1991

Jones A.  & Hiller, B., 2017, ‘Exploring the dynamics of responses to agrifood production shocks’, Sustainability, 9 (6), 960

Edomah, N., Foulds, C., & Jones, A., 2017, ‘Influences on energy supply infrastructure: a comparison of different theoretical perspectives’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 79, 765

Edomah, N., Foulds, C. & Jones, A., 2016, ‘Policy making and energy infrastructure change: a Nigerian case study of energy policy governance’, Energy Policy, 102, 476

Lunt, T., Jones, A., Mulhern, W., le Zaks, D. & Jahn, M., 2016, ‘Vulnerabilities to Agricultural Production Shocks:  An extreme, plausible scenario for assessment of risk for the insurance sector’, Climate Risk Management, 13, 1

Monasterolo, I., Pasqualino, R., Janetos, A. & Jones, A., 2016, ‘Sustainable and inclusive food systems through the lenses of a complex system thinking approach – A literature review and research agenda’, Agriculture, 6 (3), 44

Jones, A. & Phillips, A., 2016, ‘Voluntary corporate engagement in climate change: a study of the ClimateWise principles’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 137, 131

Edomah, N., Foulds, C. & Jones, A., 2016, ‘Energy transitions in Nigeria: the evolution of energy infrastructure provision (1800-2015)’, Energies, 9 (7), 484

Jones, A. & Phillips, A., 2016, ‘Historic food production shocks: quantifying the extremes’, Sustainability, 8 (5), 427-436

Ruhs, N. & Jones, A., 2016, ‘The implementation of Earth Jurisprudence through substantive constitutional rights of nature’, Sustainability, 8 (2), 174

Solazzo, A., Jones, A. & Cooper, N., 2015, ‘Revising payment for ecosystem services in the light of stewardship. The need for a legal framework’, Sustainability, 7 (11), 15449

Pasqualino, R., Jones, A., Monasterolo, I. & Phillips, A., 2015, ‘Understanding global systems today – a calibration of the World3-03 model up to 2012’, Sustainability, 7 (8), 9864

Jones, A., 2015, ‘Perceived barriers and policy solutions in clean energy infrastructure investment’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 104, 297

Natalini, D., Jones, A. & Bravo, G., 2015, ‘Quantitative assessment of approaches to measuring likelihood of food riots in countries’, Sustainability, 7 (4), 4360

Recent presentations and conferences

Conference proceedings
D Natalini & AW Jones, Food insecurity as a stressor for political fragility in countries, Proceedings of Meeting the challenges of food security: innovation, sustainability and international collaboration, 14th July 2015, Westminter Food and Nutrition Forum, London.

R Pasqualino, I Monasterolo, A Philips & AW Jones, 2015, Integrating systems dynamics models towards a global systemic risk framework for assessing resource-growth insecurity, Systems Dynamics, Norway.

V Anderson & AW Jones, ‘Anthropocene: Journey of a concept’, 2014, Normative and Ideational Trends in Global Environmental Politics, BISA Working Group on Environment, University of Sheffield.

I Monasterolo, F Tonelli, AW Jones & D Natalini, ‘Hybrid System Dynamics - Agent Based model to simulate Complex Adaptive Systems: a new methodological framework for sustainability analysis’. 32nd International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, 20-23 July, 2014, Delft.