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How Story Creates Agency for the Nature and Climate Crises
Seminar followed by Q&A and drinks – all welcome – join in person or online
Story creates agency for the climate and nature crises. It is a common feeling for people to feel anxiety and fear, helplessness too, in the face of the global climate and nature crises. Yet story can act like tricksters of old who set us on new paths through the dark forest ahead. Organisations often find themselves facing their own crises, sometimes existential. All have their own tried and tested ways of talking about themselves: foundation myths, measures of success, mission statements, brand architecture and tales of enemy competitors. But these are not stories. Good story is always about engagement with the public: audiences, readers, listeners, members, students. An organisation succeeds when it tells a story not about itself, but how it is helping people make the world a better place. It talks about how it is improving lives.
This talk is based on the 2025 paper by Pretty, Milner-Gulland and 27 co-authors: “How the Concept of “Regenerative Good Growth” Could Help Increase Public and Policy Engagement and Speed Transitions to Net Zero and Nature Recovery” (Sustainability 17(3), 849).
Jules Pretty is Emeritus Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. His sole-authored books include The Low-Carbon Good Life (2023), Sea Sagas of the North (2022), The East Country (2017), The Edge of Extinction (2014), This Luminous Coast (2011), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Agri-Culture (2002), The Living Land (1998), and Regenerating Agriculture (1995).
He is former Deputy-Chair of the UK government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, and has served on advisory committees for UK research councils and the Royal Society. He was appointed A D White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University from 2001, and was Founding Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture, an honorary degree from Ohio State University, and the British Science Association Presidential Medal (Agriculture and Food) in 2015. He was appointed President of Essex Wildlife Trust in 2019, is Chair of the Essex Climate Action Commission, was also a trustee for WWF-UK, and was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Essex in 2023. This Luminous Coast was winner of New Angle Prize for Literature, and The East Country was winner of the East Anglian book of the year. He is host of 80 podcasts and films (in the series Louder Than Words and Brighter Futures) and writes the series The Climate Chronicles at www.julespretty.com.
Date:
7 November 2025, 16:15
Venue:
Dyson Perrins Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QY
Venue Details:
Main lecture theatre (1st floor, lift available)
Speaker:
Jules Pretty (University of Essex)
Organising department:
Environmental Change Institute
Organisers:
Carlyn Samuel (University of Oxford),
Jane Applegarth (University of Oxford, Oxford University Centre for the Environment)
Organiser contact email address:
biodiversity@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Yadvinder Malhi (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and the Biodiversity Network seminar series
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://bookwhen.com/oxfordbiodiversitynetwork
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Jane Applegarth
