Episode description

From Bitcoin mines to green investment bonds: how easy is it to change the way finance works to make it greener? Professor Yu Xiong and Professor Nick Robins share their research, knowledge and concerns of these high-tech financial systems with Professor Des Fitzgerald.

Professor Yu Xiong is Associate Dean International and director of the Centre for Innovation and Commercialization at the Surrey Business School, University of Surrey. His research focuses on sustainability and technological issues with global supply chains, as well as cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Professor Nick Robins is Professor in Practice – Sustainable Finance at the London School of Economics. His work focuses on how to mobilise finance for climate change, and how financial systems can support the restoration of nature. You can read blog posts by Nick Robins on his research here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/nick-robins/#news

Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.

You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.

The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.

Producer: Marcus Smith