The September edition of environmental SCIENTIST explores an approach that the IES has long championed in the sector: interdisciplinarity.
Defined here as a way of working across and beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, interdisciplinarity is fundamental to environmental science: a field that is home to a broad range of topics, concepts, and approaches to research and practice.
It could therefore be argued that environmental science is the natural habitat of interdisciplinary working. A less siloed approach to environmental work has gained traction over the last decade, and interdisciplinarity is now often held up as the gold standard of new research and working practices in environmental science. Professionals are encouraged to think and work with interdisciplinarity in mind: but how does this take shape when creating new research projects, new interdisciplinary teams, or engaging new audiences? Does the buzzword of interdisciplinarity bring with it adequate funding, support, and impetus for systemic change: enough to allow truly interdisciplinary work to take place, and break new ground?
This issue of environmental SCIENTIST considers the answers to these questions by showcasing success stories of the creation of new interdisciplinary communities, the formation of interdisciplinary Higher Education (HE) curricula for the next generation of environmental scientists, and considering how environmental professionals can follow their own game-changing interdisciplinary career paths.
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The March 2025 issue of environmental SCIENTIST, Who pays? Money, power and risk in sustainable finance, is now available open access on the website. 
This issue of environmental SCIENTIST turns to one of the most contentious and complex topics within the environmental sector: finance. The edition considers how we can harness finance to advance environmental improvement, support the transition to net zero, and ensure that our economy is resilient in the face of environmental problems. Crucially, this issue asks who pays for this transition, and how.
There has been widespread global implementation of new financial measures, initiatives and policies (e.g., carbon taxes, Environment and Social Governance (ESG), and green finance to name a few), but the complexities and pitfalls of our current global economic system present challenges for policymakers, researchers, and environmental professionals alike. Financial support for environmental programmes, research and innovation must also remain accessible, democratic, and innovative. This issue of environmental SCIENTIST therefore asks how we can best work towards a truly sustainable financial system, which can unlock new opportunities for environmental and social improvement.
Authors contributing to this issue are experts in the environmental dimensions of finance, from academics and communications experts to political commentators. Their articles consider the successes and failures of new financial frameworks and standards, examine the geopolitics of financing environmental improvement, explore the possibilities for new ways of communicating environmental finance, and investigate innovative solutions to financial challenges.
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The December 2024 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, A Planetary Prescription, is now available open access on the website.
This issue of environmental SCIENTIST sheds light on the ways in which human health and the environment are inextricably linked. Articles explore the complexities of well-known issues such as PFAS contamination and air pollution, alongside topics including inequitable access to healthcare and the green spaces necessary for wellbeing, the impacts of heat stress on maternal health, and the health effects of increasing mould and fungus in UK housing due to climate change. This edition will ultimately raise important questions about the unevenly distributed effects of environmental damage on human health, and propose ways to address these imbalances head-on.
Contributors in this issue respond to the health impacts of both systemic and specific environmental crises, driving forward thinking around how we respond holistically to the countless health challenges global society is facing, particularly those that are intensified by climate change and its multifaceted effects.
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The September 2024 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, Counting on Net Gain, is now available open access on the website.
This issue of the journal examines an idea that is gaining traction in environmental thinking in recent years: net gain. Approaching this topic from a range of different disciplines and perspectives, articles in this issue of environmental SCIENTIST consider the opportunities and limitations of net gain, as a global policy and regulatory framework, and as a way of thinking that can shape our understanding of progress and development.
Contributors in this issue will examine specific policies, such as the now-mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain, which came into effect in England in February 2024, as well as broader conceptualisations of the term that incorporate marine life, the wider environment, and our society.
Situating net gain in a global context, articles will respond to important questions about its usage and implementation: including what challenges do policymakers face when addressing such complex and far-reaching goals? How can landowners and other stakeholders become engaged with long-term and complex environmental protection practices? Is net gain a concept that should be extended to other areas of environmental protection and policy, beyond just biodiversity? The authors of the articles in this issue of environmental SCIENTIST address these questions informed by their expertise in fields such as land management, architecture, land remediation, and digital ecology.
By bringing together voices at the cutting edge of these sectors, this issue takes a holistic and informed perspective on the emergence of net gain both as a policy and an ideological framework.
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The June 2024 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, Where Green Meets Machine, is now available open access on the website.
Innovations in AI, machine learning, and other digital technologies are already offering enormous benefits for environmental science, and for the health of our ecosystems. Yet with these opportunities comes a significant amount of environmental, social, ethical, and existential risk. How do we navigate the rising CO2 emissions from artificial intelligence, while supporting its use for optimising adaptation to a changing climate? How should environmental professions be adapting to the rise in digitisation of traditionally hands-on work, and how can we support new environmental science research in areas of digital technology that are evolving so incredibly quickly?
In this issue of environmental SCIENTIST, our contributors explore the dilemmas that are tangled up with innovation in digital technologies and the environmental sciences. Showcasing some of the most exciting use cases of new digital innovation – from augmented reality and machine learning for wildlife conservation, to novel algorithms for climate change and blockchain for traceability – authors in this issue shed light on the advantages that embracing digital technologies can offer us, while remaining alert to the complexities they present: many of which remain to be discovered.
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The March 2024 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, Britain’s Natural Capital, is now available open access on the website.
Britain’s natural environment is often viewed as something that exists independently of our financial and governance systems. Whilst there are questions about whether we should reduce nature to a quantifiable entity, it may no longer be enough to advocate for our natural environment purely for its own sake. To legislate for the protection, funding, and political support of nature in Britain, we must offer robust evidence of the benefits – social, financial, and ecological – that a healthy natural environment imparts.
In this issue, authors explore some of Britain’s most important ecosystems, as well as presenting expert perspectives on some of the ways we can use the concept of natural capital to the advantage of both society and the environment. Articles in Britain’s Natural Capital range from the ecological benefits provided by kelp farming on the Isle of Mull, to the significance of our urban green spaces in London and Nottingham, and the importance of recovering our vital chalk streams from degradation. Alongside responding to some of the biggest challenges facing our environment today, contributors to this edition of the journal offer persuasive and evidence-led assessments on the state of Britain’s natural capital.
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The December 2023 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, Watertight Solutions, is now available open access on the website.
The water crisis is now a familiar feature in the UK media: from sewage discharges released into our rivers and seas, to plastic pollution damaging our wastewater systems, and droughts and floods becoming an increasingly frequent concern as our climate changes.
However, amongst the growing pressures our water infrastructure faces, there are innovative governance, technological, and behavioural solutions emerging from experts and professionals across the water sector. Contributors to this issue of environmental SCIENTIST cover topics that range from wastewater to citizen science and pollution, and they address the crucial ways we can adapt our understanding and management of water in the UK, to respond to multiple environmental and anthropogenic challenges.
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The June 2023 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, Unearthing Global Megatrends in Land Condition, is now available open access on our website.
No profession operates in a vacuum and it is imperative that we pay attention to emerging drivers of change.
This edition of environmental SCIENTIST explores how the European Environment Agency’s eleven global megatrends are influencing the work of the land condition community. Tackling diverse topics from microplastics and antimicrobial resistance through to climate change, the journal suggests how we should be developing approaches to accommodate these momentous changes. In this way, land condition professionals, and other environmental disciplines that interact with land, can be prepared for future conditions and contribute meaningfully to sustainable development.
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The September 2023 edition of the IES’ journal, environmental SCIENTIST, Seeking Natural Justice, is now available open access on our website.
How we respond to matters of environmental justice in the present will shape our society well into the future, as the world grapples with the intensifying effects of climate change and countless other environmental pressures.
Exploring a range of environmental injustices – from the dumping of hazardous waste in a predominantly Black neighbourhood in Dallas, Texas, to disaster capitalism in Barbuda following Hurricane Irma – this edition sheds light on the inequalities inherent in environmental damage. Crucially, these articles also consider routes to attaining environmental justice: such as working with legal systems, engaging in civil disobedience, or creating innovative new ways to hold corporations and authorities to account for environmental wrongdoing. Ultimately, this issue of environmental SCIENTIST examines how – and if – environmental justice can be achieved, particularly for the most vulnerable communities on the front line of the climate crisis.
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By understanding risk, we can see potential futures and pathways for the society and economy we want to create for future generations. As the global community makes decisions about which approach to take to the interconnected issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution, we must grapple with many of these concepts lest we cross thresholds from which we cannot return.
This edition of environmental SCIENTIST unites interdisciplinary voices to share understandings of risk, revealing how its consideration is also increasingly crucial beyond the scientific community.
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