The Seminar Series

The dates and venues of the seminars are as below. Broad topic areas indicated here are as we envisage them at the start of the process, though these may change for the later seminars as we progress. This page will be updated with all significant changes.

14th-15th April 2003 (Lancaster)

Where did the concept of natural capital come from? How essential is it to the idea of sustainability? In what senses is it importantly metaphorical? How has it structured debates in environmental and ecological economics and how has it figured in the policy and planning world?

19th/20th June 2003 (Bath)

How has education for sustainability used natural capital concepts such as environmental capacity and stewardship?How might it recognise and make best learning use of the metaphorical status of this idea-nexus? What light could such a learning agenda throw on the economics issues, and vice-versa?

18th/19th September 2003 (Lancaster)

How could we develop social and institutional learning around natural capital and similar concepts? What are the implications for institutions and the political process of the metaphorical character of these concepts, for instance of the different ways in which suggestions of capital ‘ownership’ are to be taken? What are the implications for changing human behaviour around environmental sustainabilty issues?

20th/21st November 2003 (Bath)

Where do we go from here? What new prospects for economics, education, social intelligence and future research are opened up by this approach?