Molly Scott Cato
Professor of Strategy and Sustainability, University of Roehampton Business School
Molly Scott Cato is Professor of Strategy and Sustainability in the Business School at the University of Roehampton. She is a green economist who is also well-known in the field of co-operative studies.
Molly’s first area of work is into the green economy, addressing the question of how we might design and organise an economy that fits comfortably within planetary limits and achieves social justice. To this end she undertakes a critique of the monocultural global economy and proposes instead a system of self-reliant local economies, within the over-arching framework of a bioregional approach to provisioning.
Her second main area of work addresses the theory of the economics of co-operatives and social enterprises and in particular the concept of social entrepreneurship. Molly is a member of the UK Society of Co-operative Studies and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Co-operative Studies. She is well connected within the co-operative movement and is a board member of Meadow Prospect, the regeneration subsidiary of a housing mutual based in the Welsh Valleys.
Her third area of work involves critiquing the existing monetary system and suggesting sustainable and stable alternatives. The link between the growth imperative that drives the environmental crisis and the debt-based nature of the existing money system is a central tenet of green economics.
Molly has published widely and in a range of different outlets; she also her own personal website, Green Economist, and a popular blog Gaian Economics. She is interested in developing work in the areas of the bioregional economy and participatory planning within the context of climate change. She is also engaged with practical sustainability via her involvement with Transition Stroud and her role as a Green councillor on Stroud District Council.