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 1-12 of 77 items.

The Sun Also Rises in Portugal

Ambitions of Just Solar Energy Transitions

Portugal has recently achieved a five-fold increase in solar capacity and its National Energy and Climate Plan has set an ambitious future target. This book considers whether this ambition will bear out in practice, and how social justice might be addressed, in a one-stop resource for policy makers, practitioners and scholars.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 14.99 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUB
  • Currently not availablePDF

Planetary Justice

Stories and Studies of Action, Resistance and Solidarity

This accessible book features the diverse voices of scholars and activists working towards climate justice. The collection explores the politics and practices of moving towards solidarity and flourishing in the face of climate change, biodiversity loss and extinction.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 27.99 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUB

Arctic Justice

Environment, Society and Governance

Offering a unique introduction to the study of justice in the European, North American and Russian Arctic, this collection highlights the practical consequences of postcolonial legacies and climate change while championing a sustainable future for Arctic development and governance.

Bristol Uni Press

Climate Litigation and Justice in Africa

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This volume brings together an international team of contributors to provide a much-needed examination of climate litigation in Africa. The book outlines how climate litigation in Africa is distinct as well as pinpointing where it connects with the global conversation.

Bristol Uni Press

Theorising Justice

A Primer for Social Scientists

Justice is becoming increasingly important to climate change and economic development discussions. This book combines justice theories with their applications in policy and practice, to address the social, political, economic and ecological challenges we face today.

Bristol Uni Press

Whose Land Is Our Land?

The Use and Abuse of Britain's Forgotten Acres

In this provocative book, journalist Peter Hetherington argues that Britain, particularly England, needs an active land policy to protect against record land price increases that threaten food security and housing provision for Britain’s expanding population.

Policy Press

What Is Veganism For?

Catherine Oliver shows why the veganism movement has become a powerful social, political and environmental force. She discusses the health and environmental benefits of veganism, explores the practical and social impacts of the shift to eating plants, and explains why veganism is not just a diet, but a way of life.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 8.99 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 8.99

What Are Animal Rights For?

How should we treat animals? The field of animal rights raises pressing questions about how humans treat the other animals as livestock farming exerts an increasing toll on the planet, and we learn more about their capacity to think and experience pain. This book shows what the world might look like if animals had greater rights.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is Anthropology For?

Should the line be maintained between nature and cultural, the biological and the informational, the human and the planetary? Kriti Kapila argues that anthropology provides an essential set of tools for analysing our social reality and makes a case for its unique insights into our human connection, relatedness and exchange.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 8.99 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 8.99

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

How to Build Houses and Save the Countryside

Focusing on house building and conservation politics in England, Spiers uses his considerable experience and extensive research to demonstrate why the current model doesn’t work, and why there needs to be both planning reform and a more active role for the state, including local government.

Policy 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