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Dr Samuel Tang
Lecturer in Business and Sustainable Development
Bartlett School Env, Energy & Resources
Faculty of the Built Environment
- Joined UCL
- 15th Sep 2021
Research summary
Organisations, whether private, public or third sector, not only contribute but also offer solutions to addressing the combined impact of the climate, pollution, health, and social integration challenges. I am interested in the relationship between organisations and grand challenges. How organisations cause and address grand challenges, and vice versa, how grand challenges influence organisations responses. Current research explores three interrelated themes:
1. Business responses to climate change: what are they doing, why are they doing that, and how can we change behaviour?2. Transparency for sustainability, which aims to understand new approaches to transparency in sustainability reporting and practice that can generate desired positive outcomes for society and organisations.
3. Symbolic corporate environmentalism: exploring how organisations position themselves towards societal and environmental values to achieve and sustain legitimacy.
Teaching summary
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
I contribute to the Business and Sustainability module.
Biography
Through an interdisciplinary and internationally collaborative approach, I draw upon expertise in environmental sustainability, environmental regulation and governance, science and technology studies, and strategy, to investigate the intersection of organisations and global challenges.
Before joining UCL’s Institute for Sustainable Resources I was a Research Fellow of the Leonardo Centre on Business for Society at Imperial College Business School (2020-2021), and a Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Regulation and Innovation in the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London (2016-2020). I also worked as a climate policy researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund Europe (2016), helping to develop a guide on methane emissions in the oil and gas industry for investors.
I completed my PhD at King’s College London in the Department of Geography on corporate responses to climate change reporting requirements. My MSc in Sustainable Development (2011), and BSc (Hons) in Geography (2010) are from the University of Exeter.
In addition to my research, I advise SMEs on their environmental and social sustainability practices. Helping to assess sustainability credentials and performance to identify opportunities to enhance the robustness and transparency of their commitments and actions.