Beyond Growth

Catherine Loke is a Partner in Lander Loke Architects and Founding President of The Circle for Human Sustainability. She was the First Vice President of the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) from 2018-2020 and is currently a Member of the Board of Architects Singapore.

As an educator, she has been teaching at the National University of Singapore since 2017 and is currently Adjunct Lecturer at Temasek Skills Future Academy, teaching Sustainability and Systems Thinking. She is also involved in a Capstone project at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Catherine has a deep interest in how the built environment is designed, the economics of sustainability and what motivates human behavior, and is regularly invited to speak on subjects ranging from architectural practice to sustainability, urban farming, and economics. In recognition of her contribution to the industry, she was awarded the Women of the Built Environment Award at the RICS Awards 2020 Southeast Asia.

Katherine Ricardson is a professor in biological oceanography at the University of Copenhagen, leader of the Sustainability Science Centre, a principle investigator in the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, and Leader of the Queen Margrethe’s and Vigdís Finnbogadóttir´s Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Ocean, Climate, and Society.

Her research focuses on the importance of biological processes in the ocean for the uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere and how ocean biology, including diversity, contributes to ocean function in the Earth System. Katherine is also a core developer of the Planetary Boundaries framework that attempts to identify a safe operating space for humanity in its impact on global resources.

Katherine was Chairman of the Danish Commission on Climate Change Policy that reported in 2010 and presented a roadmap for how Denmark can become independent of fossil fuels by 2050. She is at present a member of the Government appointed Danish Climate Council and was a member of the 15 person Independent Group of Scientists appointed by Ban Ki Moon to draft the 2019 UN Global Sustainable Development Report.

She is Co-Editor in Chief of the Marine Ecology Progress Series and a member of the editorial board for Global Sustainability. Authorship of books includes Our Threatened Oceans (2008) and Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions (2014). She is currently co-chair of the Northern European Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

Vincent Liegey, co-author of Exploring Degrowth: a Critical Guide (Pluto Press, 2020), is an engineer, interdisciplinary researcher and activist. He is the coordinator of Cargonomia, Degrowth research and experimentation cooperative in Budapest. One of the spokesperson of the French Degrowth movement, he is also one of the coordinators of the support group for the international Degrowth conference. Vincent has also co-authored Sobriété (La Vraie) and Décroissance, Fake or Not (Tana Editions, 2023 and 2021), and Un Projet de Décroissance (Editions Utopia, 2013).

Kelly Clark is a leading speaker, advisor and consultant, working at the convergence of systems change, climate finance and macro-economics. In this dynamic role she draws on her significant experience in leading both philanthropic and capital market efforts that unite finance with positive impact outcomes.

From 2019-June 2023 she was the Director of the Finance & Capital Market programme at Laudes Foundation. Prior to this she was the Founder/Director of the Finance Dialogue, a think tank leveraging institutional investors to accelerate the net zero carbon transition.

In her early career, Kelly spent 10 years as a banker, culminating in her role as the Head of South East Asian Private Banking for UBS out of Hong Kong. Kelly is a NED for Snowball Investment Management, and an Advisory Board member for the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. She lives in London with her twins, Marnie and Flynn.