Economics and Ethics for Sustainable Development in a Changing World (Discussion Seminar)

Please note that this event is in-person only, and RSVPs are requested to attend. Walk-ins are welcome.
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The 2025-26 Tanner Lecture features economist Nicholas Stern discussing the economics of an ethically sound world.

The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss require a rapid restructuring of how we produce, consume, and care for the environment. This lecture will explore how a new economics can guide these changes to our systems, structures, and technologies that are necessary to lead us toward a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. We need an ethically sound public economics where structures are dynamic, where market failures are taken seriously, where change is driven by private-sector investment, and where time matters.

2-day Event Schedule
Lecture by Nicholas Stern with Heather Boushey
Thursday, March 12, 5–7pm | Denning House, Rm 210
Discussion Seminar with Nicholas Stern, Simon Caney, and Gretchen Daily
Friday, March 13, 10am–12pm | Denning House, Rm 201

This event is hosted by the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and the Office of the President.

Speaker:

Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Chair of the Global School of Sustainability at the London School of Economics. He has held posts at other UK and overseas universities, and as Chief Economist at both the EBRD and the World Bank. He was Head, UK Government Economic Service 2003-2007, and produced the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. He was President of the Royal Economic Society (2018-2019).  He was President of the British Academy (July 2013-2017) and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (June 2014). He was knighted for services to economics (2004), made a life peer (2007), and appointed Companion of Honour for services to economics, international relations and tackling climate change in 2017. He has published more than 15 books and 100 articles.

Discussants:

Simon Caney is Professor in Political Theory at the University of Warwick. He works on issues in contemporary political philosophy, and has published widely on climate justice, global justice, and responsibilities to future generations. He is the author of Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford University Press, 2005), and he is also the co-editor (with Stephen Gardiner, Dale Jamieson and Henry Shue) of Climate Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2010). He was a member of UK’s Nuffield Council of Bioethics (2014-2020), and a coauthor of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics reports on Biofuels: Ethical Issues (2011) and Research in Global Health Emergencies (2020). He is completing two books - On Cosmopolitanism: Equality, Ecology, and Emancipation (Oxford University Press) and Democracy, Justice, and the Future: An Essay in Applied Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press). He is also currently completing a series of papers on climate justice.

Gretchen Daily is Bing Professor of Environmental Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She is co-founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Natural Capital Alliance, a 20-year-old global partnership whose mission is to help secure the well-being of people and nature.  They do this by co-developing with decision-makers a systematic approach to valuing nature in sustaining and fulfilling human life.  The approach is now being integrated into policy, finance, and practice in over 75 countries around the world.  

Together with many colleagues, Daily has published several hundred scientific and popular articles, and a dozen books, including Nature’s Services (1997), The New Economy of Nature (2002), The Power of Trees (2012), and Green Growth that Works (2019). Daily is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She has received numerous international honors including the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2020), Blue Planet Prize (2017), Volvo Environment Prize (2012), and the International Cosmos Prize (2009). 

This event will have a videographer and photographer present to document the event. No personal recordings (audio or visual) are allowed. By attending, you consent for your image to be used for Stanford-related promotions and materials. If you have any questions, please contact ethics-center [at] stanford.edu (ethics-center[at]stanford[dot]edu).

If you require disability-related accommodation, please contact disability.access [at] stanford.edu (disability[dot]access[at]stanford[dot]edu) as soon as possible or at least 7 business days in advance of the event.

See this link for information about Visitor parking. 

Learn more about the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society.