Dr. Patrick Bigger

Dr. Bigger (Lancaster University) has conducted research and published on a wide variety of environmental-financial entanglements, including cap-and-trade carbon markets and labelled green debt (green bonds), in addition to his ongoing collaboration on for-profit biodiversity conservation. His work draws on a range of heterodox economic thought, especially cultural economy and the sociology of markets, alongside geographical political economy, to examine the mechanisms created by financiers that try to solve varying, but overlapping, environmental crises. He has substantial experience conducting research with financiers and policy makers, and presents research outcomes at industry events as well in academic fora.  His research across the breadth of environmental finance will be helpful for understanding continuities and differences in the different mechanisms proposed for this study, and his experience in dialogue with financiers and policy actors, including several involved in the proposed research, will facilitate many aspects of the project. Dr. Bigger’s most recent work has appeared in journals including Environment and Planning: A, Political Geography, the Journal of Environmental Investing, and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. He is based at the Lancaster Environment Centre, a transdisciplinary academic department that is home to the secretariat of the Political Ecology Network.

Sample publications

Bigger, P. 2018. Hybridity, Possibility: Degrees of Marketization in Tradeable Permit Systems. Environment and Planning A. 50, 3, p. 512-530. 19 p.

Ouma, S., Johnson, L., Bigger, P. 2018. Rethinking the financialization of ‘nature’. Environment and Planning A. 50, 3, 12 p.

Bigger, P., Dempsey, J., Asiyanbi, A., Kay, K., Lave, R., Mansfield, B., Osborne, T., Robertson, M., Simon, G. 2018. Reflecting on neoliberal natures: an exchange.. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. 1, 1-2, 51p.

Bigger, P., Robertson, M. 2017. Value is simple; valuation is complex. Capitalism Nature Socialism. 28, 1, p. 68-77. 10 p.