14:30
Imperial College
October 29
LT 200, City and Guilds Building
Reclaiming Our Common Future: The pursuit of shared purpose in an age of division
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Please note capacity is limited and early registration is highly recommended.
In 1987, Our Common Future laid the foundation for sustainable development as a shared global responsibility. Nearly four decades on, the world faces converging crises that are testing this vision: climate change, pandemics, deepening inequality, and protracted conflicts. As multilateralism strains under geopolitical fragmentation and waning trust, how can we rekindle the spirit of collective action to meet the challenges of our time?
In this keynote address, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland — former Prime Minister of Norway, founding Member of The Elders, and “godmother” of sustainable development — will reflect on the arc of global cooperation from the adoption of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement to the Pandemic Agreement and today’s fractured landscape. She will examine how fragmented responses to global crises underscore the urgency of strengthening inclusive, rules-based multilateralism and new forms of integrative diplomacy, especially if we are to secure global public goods such as health and a liveable future on our planet.
Dr. Brundtland will explore the necessity for long-view leadership in reconnecting sustainability, health, and resilience, calling for greater convergence across institutional silos. From reinforcing the rule of law and protecting human rights to restructuring the global financial architecture and forging “coalitions of the willing,” she will argue that renewed multilateral cooperation is not only possible – but essential. The lecture will offer a forward-looking vision ahead of UNFCCC COP30 in Brazil and the G20 Summit in South Africa, highlighting the role of diverse actors — from academia to development banks to regional blocs — in shaping a more just, equitable, and unified “common future.”
Agenda
Time
Activity
17:30 – 18:00
Registrations
18:00 – 18:05
Opening remarks
Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, Chair of the Grantham Institute, Imperial College
18:05 – 18:30
Keynote
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Former Prime Minister of Norway, founding Member of The Elders, and “godmother” of sustainable development
18:30 – 18:50
Fireside chat
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Former Prime Minister of Norway, founding Member of The Elders, and “godmother” of sustainable development
Justin Rowlatt, Climate Editor at BBC News (moderator)
18:50 – 19:30
Panel
Dr Sarah Stein Lubrano, Researcher and Writer, Author of Don’t Talk About Politics
Angela Francis, Director of Policy Solutions at WWF-UK
Dr Neil Jennings, Partnership Manager at the Grantham Institute
Justin Rowlatt, Climate Editor at BBC News (moderator)
19:30 – 20:30
Drinks reception
Speakers
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland
Gro Harlem Brundtland is a founding member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, who work together for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet, and was Deputy Chair from 2013 to 2018. She was Norway’s first woman Prime Minister, serving a total of ten years as head of government between 1981 and 1996. She chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission, was Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003, UN Special Envoy for Climate Change from 2007 to 2010 and, from 2011 to 2012, was a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Sustainability Panel. She served as a co-chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board from 2018 to 2021 and helped lead its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Justin Rowlatt
Justin Rowlatt is the BBC’s first climate editor and one of the Corporation’s most well-known correspondents. It’s his job to report from the frontline of our changing world, documenting how climate change is reshaping ecosystems and economies. You’ll have seen him on the main TV news, you’ll have heard him on radio, you will have read his articles online and you may well subscribe to his BBC Future Earth newsletter.
Dr Sarah Stein Lubrano
Dr Sarah Stein Lubrano holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge. Her first book Don’t Talk About Politics: Changing 21st Century Minds is out now with Bloomsbury. Her thinking often reaches the public through the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. She has a background in feminist, mutual aid, and other local organising as well as teaching in prisons. She was previously the Head of Content at The School of Life and wrote obituaries. She regularly appears on public radio and a variety of podcasts.
Angela Francis
Angela’s passion is transforming human systems – energy, production, consumption, and trade – to bring them in line with our environment. Starting as an accountant in the energy industry she became an economist and has spent over 20 years working on productivity, innovation, and low carbon growth in UK, Europe, and the Caribbean where she was Regional Economist and Climate Attaché for the FCO. She found a new home for those skills in the NGO sector 10 years ago, at Green Alliance and WWF UK, as Chief Economist and then Chief Advisor on Economics. Now Director of Policy Solutions, she leads the work of the climate, finance, economics, production, and consumption teams on net zero and nature restoration. Angela has been a member of UCL’s Green Innovation Policy Commission and Nature Positive Innovation Policy Commission, IPPR’s Environmental Justice Commission, BEIS-DfE Green Jobs Taskforce and now sits on the CCC Economic Advisory Group on Risk and Adaptation. Her TEDtalk on the green economy has over 1.7 million views.
Dr Neil Jennings
Dr Neil Jennings is Partnership Development Manager within the Policy Team at the Grantham Institute. He leads on Grantham’s policy engagement work on climate change and health and has a particular interest in the co-benefits of climate action – how tackling climate change can help create a cleaner, greener, fairer future and how these benefits can be better considered in the decision-making process.
At Imperial, Neil is part of the interdisciplinary Climate Cares Centre – a group of researchers, designers, policy-experts and educators aiming to understand and support mental health in the current climate and ecological crises – and lectures on the MSc Climate Change Management and Finance, BSc Global Health, Global Master of Public Health and the MSc International Health Management courses.
Register to attend in-person
Register to attend online
Please note capacity is limited and early registration is highly recommended.
Watch Grantham Institute’s previous Annual Lectures on our YouTube playlist