Stepping towards a green recovery

Leading a struggling economy into a green recovery offers more challenges than it did pre-Covid-19, a leading environmental scientist will warn this week.

Professor Sir Ian Boyd, former Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is the keynote speaker of a webinar looking at whether Scotland is taking the right steps towards a green recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The webinar, A Green Recovery from Covid-19, is the second in a series launched by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) to look at the ‘wicked challenges’ facing the planet.

While Covid-19 has caused the world to slow down, leading to a reduction in emissions, the challenge is whether, as society starts to speed up again, Scotland can build back into a greener, more sustainable environment.

The webinar, on Friday 2 October, will attempt to address pivotal questions such as ‘Is Scotland taking the right steps towards a green recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic?’, ‘What will our post-Covid-19, post-Brexit world look like?’ and Can we achieve net-zero by 2045 in line with the Scottish Government deadline by recovering sustainably from Covid-19?’.

Sir Ian, Professor of Biology at St Andrews University, said: “There is much talk about a ‘green’ recovery from Covid-19, but it is important to understand the kind of challenges this presents. Moving a vibrant economy to become sustainable was always going to be difficult but moving one which is struggling to function in that direction will be even more difficult.”

The Wicked Webinar series is part of SRUC’s new vision and mission focusing on a sustainable natural economy.

Sir Ian’s presentation will be followed by a Q&A session where participants can ask questions and share their thoughts.

A third webinar on Wednesday 7 October - Fake news: The challenges of communicating environmental and climate change research - will feature presentations by Tracey Brown, director of the charity Sense about Science, and Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, chair of Cognitive Psychology at the School of Psychological Science at the University of Bristol.

The A Green Recovery from Covid-19 webinar will be held on Friday 2 October from 1pm to 2pm.

For more information, or to register, visit: www.sruc.ac.uk/greenwebinar

Posted by SRUC on 28/09/2020