MrJonathan Swinney

Jonathan Swinney is a doctoral student at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. He conducts leading interdisciplinary research into the private governance response to climate change. This involves investigating the new emergent forestry paradigm called Climate-Smart Forestry (CSF) in science and policy, and understanding the economic trade-offs of implementing CSF in the commercial forestry sector. The research is supervised by Professor Clive Potter and Dr Ioannis Kountouris and is funded by an ESRC scholarship.

Jonathan has prior research experience. At the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he was an undergraduate research assistant to an environmental law professor. This entailed researching corporate environmental behaviour in the United States. In a similar post at Queen Mary University of London, he investigated big data and digital geopolitics in India whilst, at the London School of Economics, he conducted research into deforested land and agricultural production in the Tropics.

Prior to his entry into academia, Jonathan worked as an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Consultant at RSM - the world's 6th largest professional services firm. He delivered sustainability projects for clients to address their most pressing ESG challenges. This ranged from ESG assurance and developing net zero pathways to modern slavery reviews and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategies.

Jonathan holds an MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons) in Geography from Queen Mary University of London and the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.