Aled Jones

Director, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University

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. Dr Jones 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.

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