Policy Press

Climate change, energy and sustainability

The work we publish creates an understanding of the connection between global discourses on climate change facts, specific policy responses and environmental law, contributing to ongoing debates in academia and beyond. It addresses the following UN Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, Goal 13: Climate Action, Goal 14: Life Below Water and Goal 15: Life on Land.

Our publishing links to the global project, including the UN Agenda 2030 and provides a solid foundation for international and domestic policies around global warming, to support building impactful democratic solutions. 

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Climate change, energy and sustainability, we aim to address the following goals:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 7: Affordable and clean energySDG 12: Responsible consumption and productionSDG 13: Climate actionSDG 14: Life below waterSDG 15: Life on land

Showing 37-48 of 77 items.

A Climate Pact for Europe

How to Finance the Green Deal

The COVID-19 pandemic gives an opportunity to relaunch global economic systems. A bestseller in France, this book offers a Climate Pact for the EU, providing the causes, solutions and financial options of climate deregulation and challenging current policy and practice.

Bristol Uni Press

The Forgotten City

Rethinking Digital Living for Our People and the Planet

Phil Allmendinger takes a critical approach to the role of ‘smart’ in future cities and the relationship with city development. Considering how technology can support active citizenship, he challenges the commercial drivers of big tech and warns that these, not developments for ‘social good’, may dominate.

Policy Press

Sustainable Hedonism

A Thriving Life that Does Not Cost the Earth

Drawing on modern science and ancient Greek philosophy, this book calls on us to explore our collective and personal convictions about success and good life. It challenges the mainstream worldview, rooted in economics, that equates happiness with pleasure, and encourages greed, materialism, egoism and disconnection.

Bristol Uni Press

The Struggle for Social Sustainability

Moral Conflicts in Global Social Policy

Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the ‘social’ of social policy. This ground-breaking volume tackles pressing ‘social questions’ and critically engages with contested conceptions of ‘the social’ which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers.

Policy Press

Sustainable Human Development Across the Life Course

Evidence from Longitudinal Research

Edited by Prerna Banati

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book presents impactful findings from international longitudinal studies that responded to the Agenda 2030 commitment to “leave no-one behind”.It provides actionable strategies for policy makers and practitioners to strengthen the global Sustainable Development Goals framework.

Bristol Uni Press

The Age of Low Tech

Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization

A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on our technological future. Bihouix skilfully goes against the grain to argue that ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and envisages a different approach to manage our resources and build a more resilient and sustainable society.

Bristol Uni Press

Responsibility Beyond Growth

A Case for Responsible Stagnation

Critically assessing growth-based models of innovation policy, this book sparks new debate on the role of responsible innovation.

Drawing on insights from economics, politics, and science and technology studies, it proposes the concept of 'responsible stagnation' as an expansion of present discussions about growth, responsibility and innovation.

Bristol Uni Press

Comparative Urban Research From Theory To Practice

Co-Production For Sustainability

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Reports on the innovative, transdisciplinary co-production on sustainable urbanisation undertaken by Mistra Urban Futures, a highly influential research centre based in Sweden (2010-19), this book makes a significant contribution to evolving theory about comparative urban research.

Policy Press

Too Hot to Handle?

The Democratic Challenge of Climate Change

This book explores why climate is such a challenge for political systems, even when policy solutions exist. It argues that more democracy, not less, is needed to tackle the climate crisis, and suggests practical ways forward.

Bristol Uni Press

Cities Demanding the Earth

A New Understanding of the Climate Emergency

Unless we make drastic changes, the climate damage that we are causing by living in cities will result in terminal consumption. Providing a radical new argument that integrates global understandings of making nature and making cities, the authors move beyond current policies of mitigation and adaption towards making cities spaces for activism.

Bristol Uni Press

Legal Perspectives on Sustainability

The intersections of law and sustainability are explored in new ways in this interdisciplinary volume by legal experts in a variety of fields. Offering analysis of sustainability at land and sea alongside trade, labour and corporate governance perspectives, this book articulates important debates about the role of law.

Bristol Uni Press

Negotiating Migration in the Context of Climate Change

International Policy and Discourse

Assessing migration in the context of climate change, Nash draws on empirical research to offer a unique analysis of policy-making in the field. This detailed account is a vital step in understanding the links between global discourses on human mobilities, climate change and specific policy responses.

Bristol Uni Press


A selection of related journal articles

Volume 7, Number 1 of Global Discourse featuring:
Paris: optimism, pessimism and realism 
On the obsolescence of human beings in sustainable development
On preparing for the great gift of community that climate disasters can give us

Voluntary Sector Review themed section on 'Re-reading civil society action for environmental sustainability' featuring:
Shoots and leaves: exploring the impacts and fragile sustainability of sustainable place-making projects working with marginalised people
A part and yet apart: how third sector visions of carbon reduction are both welcomed and marginalised
The community economies of Esch-sur-Alzette: rereading the economy of Luxembourg [Open Access]
Assembling community energy democracies

Extinction Rebellion: social work, climate change and solidarity in Critical and Radical Social Work

Extinction Rebellion: a social worker’s observation in Critical and Radical Social Work

The gender dynamics of climate change on rural women's agro-based livelihoods and food security in rural Zimbabwe: implications for green social work in Critical and Radical Social Work

Climate change and food: a green social work perspective in Critical and Radical Social Work

Evidence reviews in energy and climate policy in Evidence & Policy

Contested knowledge in Dutch climate change policy in Evidence & Policy

Does risk-based decision-making present an ‘epistemic trap’ for climate change policymaking? in Evidence & Policy

British political values, attitudes to climate change, and travel behaviour in Policy & Politics

Policies, politics and organisational problems: multiple streams and the implementation of targets in UK government in Policy & Politics

Electricity market reform: so what's new? in Policy & Politics

What’s the Use of Green Shame? from the Global Discourse blog

Green shame: the next moral revolution? from Global Discourse