Generating sustainable economic growth and development panel

Join us for a panel discussion with Jonathan Leape, Lord Adair Turner and Anna Valero

The central challenge of our time is not whether to pursue growth, but how to generate growth that is environmentally sustainable, politically durable, and economically inclusive. As countries confront climate transition, energy system reform, rising debt burdens, and geopolitical fragmentation, the key policy question is no longer mitigation versus development. It is whether we can redesign growth models so that decarbonisation, productivity, resilience, and poverty reduction reinforce one another.

Meet our speakers and chair

Jonathan Leape is Executive Director of the International Growth Centre (IGC), and Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE). As head of the IGC since 2013, he led the response to COVID, including co-chairing the FCDO COVID-19 Economic Advisory Group with FCDO Chief Economist Rachel Glennerster and, more recently, pivoted IGC’s strategy towards sustainable growth. His research interests are in taxation, regulation, structural transformation and economic growth. He was the founding Director of the Centre for Research into Economics and Finance in Southern Africa, established at LSE in 1990 as an initiative of the Commonwealth Heads of Government to support the democratic transition in South Africa. He served as the Chief Academic Advisor on Taxation to the UK Government Economic Service. He holds an AB from Harvard University, a BA/MA from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow.

Adair Turner (@AdairTurnerUK) has served in a number of prominent public roles in the UK, including as Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, the Committee on Climate Change, the Pensions Commission and the Low Pay Commission. He has also served as the Director General of the Confederation of British Industry.

Anna Valero is a Professor in Practice and Director of the Growth Programme at the Centre for Economic Performance; Deputy Director of the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (POID) and an Associate of the Grantham Research Institute. She was a member of the Steering Group of the Resolution Foundation-CEP Economy 2030 Inquiry, funded by the Nuffield Foundation; and a Research Director for the LSE Growth Commission.

Robin Burgess is a Professor of Economics, co-Founder and Director of the International Growth Centre (IGC) and Director of the Economics of Environment and Energy (EEE) Research Programme, all at the LSE. He is co-Director (with Michael Greenstone) of the Coase Project on the Economics of Climate, Energy and Environment, was the past President of BREAD, serves on the Board of Voxdev and CEGA and is an Affiliate of J-PAL and Y-RISE, a Research Fellow in CEPR and CESifo and a Fellow of the British Academy and the Econometric Society.

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The Global School of Sustainability Forum 2026 convenes international leaders, private and public sector agenda setters and policy makers, and social science researchers at the cutting edge of sustainability innovation. Where the path to global sustainability requires deep and interdisciplinary engagement across human economy, society, politics and behaviour, we are driving dialogue and framing opportunities for a hopeful and prosperous future for all.

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