Get to know Joe Blakey, Associate Dean for Environmental Sustainability

09 Mar 2026

Dr Joe Blakey, Lecturer in Human Geography in SEED, has recently taken over the role of Associate Dean for Environmental Sustainability in the Faculty. We spoke to Joe to find out more about what attracted him to the role, what he hopes to achieve, and his top tips to help colleagues be more sustainable.

Why were you interested in taking on this role?

Thirty-odd years since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), we are further spiralling into extremely dangerous levels of climate change. Ecosystem degradation is at unsafe levels whilst the sixth mass extinction is under way; freshwater use exceeds sustainable levels; synthetic chemicals, plastics and pollutants are beyond safe limits; and the chemical cycles that underpin life are being destabilised.

I could go on, but the point is clear: despite these overlapping crises, a proportionate collective societal response around the environment is yet to galvanise.

This is precisely why I see the Faculty of Humanities as central to addressing these intersecting environmental crises. Our disciplines are well-placed to attend to the forces of power, delay, denial, and false hope that continue to undermine efforts at progress, and to consider viable solutions. Rather than offering a single, normative vision of ‘sustainability’, our diverse disciplinary orientations provide a more valuable kaleidoscopic sense of what it might mean to genuinely confront environmental problems. Across our research and teaching, the Faculty is well-positioned to illuminate the structural inequalities that impede a proportionate response, and the social, cultural, political, economic and environmental possibilities for realising meaningful change.

I was interested in this role precisely because it offers this opportunity to champion the value, diversity and critical insights of the Faculty. It is about amplifying the voices that help us to understand not only why environmental issues are unfolding, but how we might collectively imagine and enact different futures, and how our insights on environmental sustainability (ES) can run through our internal actions, our teaching, and our societal impacts.

What are you most looking forward to working on in your new role?

I’m especially looking forward to working with colleagues of all stripes across the Faculty to surface and connect the extraordinary range of ES work already happening in Humanities. I’m also keen to work on the practical side of our environmental commitments – everything from supporting colleagues to reduce travel related emissions to the more hands-on side of digging and planting in the Humanities Green Space.

What do you think the Faculty needs to prioritise in ES and do you think From Manchester for the World can support with this?

There’s been some brilliant work done by my predecessor, Anke Bernau (alongside colleagues in the Faculty and Schools), in shaping this role,  developing the Faculty’s ES strategy, and especially in setting up the Humanities Green Space between the Ellen Wilkinson and Samuel Alexander  buildings. Building on these foundations, I see several priorities for us to all work on together.

First, ensuring that we continue to do our world-leading research on ES in a way that is itself environmentally and socially responsible. Second,  embedding these ideas and ES-related skills in our teaching.  Third, making the most of our civic partnerships to the benefit of both of these areas. And finally, to ensure that our operations are in line with our values too. Here I have in mind everything from transport-related emissions connected to  University business, to the environmental impact of AI that is increasingly becoming part of our working lives.

From Manchester for the World will, of course, be central to this work – its focus on partnerships, research excellence and digital skills aligns closely with our ES ambitions, and I hope we can engage with it in ways that are mutually beneficial for both ES and the strategy to 2035.

Can you give us a small but impactful sustainability tip?

Ask critical questions, even of sustainability itself. Sustainability means so many different things to different people, and it’s not always been used in ways that deliver environmentally sounder outcomes, which is the real goal here.

Sometimes we gravitate towards more incremental, feel-good actions that satisfy our cravings to do something but, paradoxically, narrow our focus and  ‘put the blinkers on’. Incremental actions can be helpful, but we also need to keep the scale of the environmental challenges we face clearly in sight.

In other words, we should not be distracted from the broader actions we also need to pursue or demand if we are to act strategically to remain within the  very small emissions space for safer levels of warming and to prevent other ecological harms from further unfurling. So, my tip is to question received wisdom at every opportunity and to ask if the environmental issues we are facing are treated with sufficient urgency and at the scale they demand.