Funding awarded for Planetary Boundaries research project

Professor Iain Black, Professor of Practice in the Department of Marketing, has secured £350k funding from SSEN‑Transmission for a world leading Planetary Boundaries research project over the next two and a half years. This will see this Scottish based company become one of the first in the world to measure its environmental impacts across all nine earth system processes and develop organisational budgets aimed at reducing harm. These budgets will take into account its ‘fair share’, as according to Bai et al. 2024, considering they are building the infrastructure essential for the electrification of our economy.

The typical approach taken by organisations is to measure their impact across one earth system, the climate system, and set budgets for Scope 1, 2, and 3 ghg emission, with some moving into measuring their impacts on land use and biodiversity.

Professor Black is working on the project with Dr Yannik Giesekam from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Stage 1 of this project is already underway, with work ongoing to recruit world-leading experts to an Advisory Board to guide the new methodologies that need to be developed. This board is designed to build relationships with leading sustainability and economic think tanks such as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, and the Donut Action Lab.

To complete this project, the second stage project, for £300,000 over two years, will start later this year.

Published: 26 March 2026