On 20 October, guest lecturer Duncan McLaren will visit the IIIEE and give a lecture on the theme: Sharing Cities for Sustainability.

The lecture will cover the principles and dilemmas of sharing economy in cities and focus on what city authorities can do to promote the sharing paradigm, and manage the sharing economy to maximise its environmental and social benefits.

The lecture will be based on the book by Julian Agyeman and Duncan McLaren “Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities”, which will be released later this year.

To read more about Duncan’s work you can have a look at “a taster” in the Time magazine and a briefing for Friends of the Earth.

Duncan McLaren is currently a freelance consultant and researcher, and part-time PhD student at Lancaster University. His research interests include cities, climate change, energy and geo-engineering, with a particular focus on issues of justice arising in these areas and the consequences for policy. Amongst other voluntary positions, he currently serves on the UK Energy Research Partnership. Previously he worked for many years in environmental research and advocacy in the UK and internationally, most recently as Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland from 2003 until 2011, after which he moved to Sweden to spend more time with his children. He holds Masters level degrees in geography, environmental policy and business administration. His latest book “Sharing Cities: a case for truly smart and sustainable cities” – co-authored with Julian Agyeman - is being published by MIT Press in December 2015.