Lecturer in Executive Education
Roles and Responsibilities
Dr Bernice Maxton-Lee is Executive Education Lecturer in Sustainability and Climate Change at the University of Edinburgh Business School’s Centre for Business, Climate Change and Sustainability (B-CCaS), which is spearheading world-class research and teaching on the corporate sustainability transition.
Background
In a 20-year career spanning business and academia she has won awards and accolades for her teaching and research, consulting for The Economist, the United Nations, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), and the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing company TSMC. With deep experience managing multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral projects in business and sustainability in Asia and Europe, she specialises in bridging the communications gap between science, research, and business, across diverse cultures.
Dr Maxton-Lee is the author of two books on sustainability, biodiversity, and climate change, has presented to business and academic audiences globally on the sustainability transition, and is a frequent guest on BBC radio and television.
Books
Forest conservation and sustainability in Indonesia: A political ecology study of international governance failure; Routledge. (2020).
A Chicken Can’t Lay a Duck Egg. How Covid-19 Can Solve the Climate Crisis; Changemakers Books. Co-authored with Graeme Maxton (2020). Translated into German, Czech, and Slovak.
Journal articles
Maxton-Lee, B. (2020). Depoliticised ecology: streamlined participation in hegemonic neoliberalism; Democratization, 27 (3).
Maxton-Lee, B. (2018). Narratives of sustainability: a lesson from Indonesia; Soundings, Project Muse 45-57.
Maxton-Lee, B. (2018). Material realities: Why Indonesian deforestation persists and conservation fails; Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48 (3), 419-444.
Maxton-Lee, B. (2017). The Oil Palm Complex: Smallholders, agribusiness and the state in Indonesia and Malaysia; Journal of Contemporary Asia, 47(2) 312-314.
Opinion articles, videos, & podcasts
Maxton, G. & Maxton-Lee, B. (8 December 2021). The Sustainable Futures Report: Dealing with the climate crisis.
Maxton, G. & Maxton-Lee, B. (5 March 2021). FacingFuture.TV: How Covid-19 might solve the climate crisis.
Maxton, G. & Maxton-Lee, B. (25 January 2021). TYT.com: The Conversation with Francesca Fiorentini.
Maxton-Lee, B. (15 January 2021). RSPO: outsourcing environmental regulation to business and industry; World Rainforest Movement.
Maxton, G. & Maxton-Lee, B. (29 December 2020). ALSO Twixtmas: a chicken can’t lay a duck egg.
Maxton-Lee, B. (21 August 2020). How deforestation in Indonesia became a geo-political hornet’s nest; REDD Monitor.
Maxton-Lee, B. (3 July 2015). An ecosystem approach to understanding deforestation in Indonesia: From Frank and Grainger to Polanyi and Luxemburg; Perspectives Internationales.
Conference participation & guest lectures
Is there enough time to reverse biodiversity loss? Global and local policy priorities for biodiversity conservation, Economist Impact's Seventh Sustainabiilty Summit for SE and the Mediterranean, Athens, 2023
Covid-19 and Taiwan: lessons and opportunities for climate leadership, graduate seminar, invited by Professor Crison Chien, Department of Geography, International Degree Program in Climate Change and Sustainable Development (IPCS), National Taiwan University, 2021
Covid-19 and Taiwan: lessons and opportunities for climate leadership, presentation to the European Business Chamber, Taiwan, 2021
Defining sustainability: How words make ecological challenges harder to solve, graduate seminar, invited by Professor Jen-Ping Chen, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, International Degree Program in Climate Change and Sustainable Development (IPCS), National Taiwan University, 2020
Tropical forest and landscape management challenges, undergraduate lecture, invited by Dr. Claude Garcia, Group of Forest Management and Development, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, 2018
Historical bloc and the illusion of consensual transformation, research paper presentation in Transition Impossible? Ambiguous Transformations and the Resilience of Unsustainability, at Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, WU Wirtschaftsuniversität Vienna, 2018
Depoliticised ecology: streamlined participation in hegemonic neoliberalism, research paper presentation in Activation – Self-Management – Overload: Political Participation beyond the Post-democratic Turn; at Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, WU Wirtschaftsuniversität Vienna, 2017
Cutting-edge cases of institution building and development, graduate lecture for Cutting Edge Cases in Development under Late Capitalism, invited by Prof. Dr. Toby Carroll, City University, Hong Kong, 2017
Themes of Development: Environment for Theories of Development, undergraduate lecture, invited by Prof. Dr. Aliena Ortwein, City University, Hong Kong, 2017
Throwing more wood on the fire: PES, MSI and enclosures; a critical analysis of conservation market leaders in Indonesia, research paper presentation in Redefining state and market relationships in East Asia: Private interests in national agendas, Congrés Asie Paris, 2017
The deforestation crisis in Indonesia: A public-private product, research paper presentation in ISA Asia-Pacific Hong Kong Conference, 2016
Themes of Development: Environment for Theories of Development, undergraduate lecture, invited by Prof. Dr. Aliena Ortwein, City University, Hong Kong, 2016
Swiss Re Expert Forum on The State and Fate of the World's Rainforests, moderator, Rüschlikon, Switzerland, 2015
The political economy of deforestation in Southeast Asia, undergraduate lecture, invited by Prof. Dr. Regina Hitzenberger, Vice-Rector of the University of Vienna, Austria, 2013
Club of Rome Change Course Conference, chair of closing session, Winterthur, Switzerland, 2013
The dynamics of environmental destruction, moderator and panel discussant, public conference on nature and the environment, Singapore, 2010