Izabela Delabre
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Overview
Overview
Extended absence from the college
**I am currently on maternity leave and will be returning in September 2025**
Biography
My research examines the intersection of forest and biodiversity loss, sustainable agriculture and supply chains, with a focus on global-local governance interactions. Other areas of interest include politics of sustainability transformations, anticipatory governance, and critical perspectives on the use of technologies in environmental governance.
With colleagues, I convene the multidisciplinary working group,“Plantations: Political ecologies of extraction and resistance” supported by Birkbeck Institute for Social Research (BISR).
Before joining Birkbeck in March 2021, I was a Research Fellow at University of Sussex and prior to that, I worked for the Business and Biodiversity Conservation Programme at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). My PhD in Human Geography drew upon a global political ecology approach to examine participatory social impact assessment practices in the context of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Qualifications
- PhD in Human Geography, University of Reading, 2017
- MSc in Environmental Management, University of Reading, 2013
- BSc in Environmental Sciences, University of Southampton, 2008
- Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of London, 2024
Web profiles
Administrative responsibilities
- Programme Director, MSc Global Environment and Sustainability
Honours and awards
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Advance HE,
ORCID
0000-0002-4046-8252 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- Politics of sustainability and sustainability transformations
- Private environmental governance, certification and standards
- Political ecology and tropical forest conservation
- Food systems and rural transformations
Research projects
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Future Food Systems and Sustainability (SSGE123S5)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Delabre, Izabela and von Hellermann, P. (2023) Selling out for sustainability? Neoliberal governance, agency and professional careers in the sustainable palm oil sector. Journal of Political Ecology 30 (1), ISSN 1073-0451.
- Delabre, Izabela and Lyons-White, J. and Melot, C. and Veggeberg, E.I. and Alexander, A. and Schleper, M.C. and Ewers, R.M. and Knight, A.T. (2023) Should I stay or should I go? Understanding stakeholder dis/engagement for deforestation-free Palm Oil. Business Strategy and the Environment ISSN 1099-0836.
- Smallwood, J. and Delabre, Izabela and Pinheiro Vergara, S. and Rowhani, P. (2023) The governmentality of tropical forests and sustainable food systems, and possibilities for post-2020 sustainability governance. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 25 (1), pp. 103-117. ISSN 1523-908X.
- Alexander, A. and Walker, H. and Delabre, Izabela (2022) A decision theory perspective on wicked problems, SDGs and stakeholders: the case of deforestation. Journal of Business Ethics 180, pp. 975-995. ISSN 0167-4544.
- Gallemore, C. and Delabre, Izabela and Jespersen, K. and Liu, T. (2022) To see and be seen: technological change and power in deforestation driving global value chains. Global Networks 22 (4), pp. 615-630. ISSN 1470-2266.
- Dornelles, A.Z. and Boonstra, W.J. and Delabre, Izabela and Denney, J.M. and Nunes, R.J. and Jentsch, A. and Nicholas, K.A. and Schroter, M. and Seppelt, R. and Settele, J. and Shackelford, N. and Standish, R.J. and Oliver, T.H. (2022) Transformation archetypes in global food systems. Sustainability Science 17, pp. 1827-1840. ISSN 1862-4065.
- Nolan, C. and Delabre, Izabela and Menga, F. and Goodman, M.K. (2022) Double exposure to capitalist expansion and climatic change: a study of vulnerability on the Ghanaian coastal commodity frontier. Ecology & Society 27 (1), pp. 1. ISSN 1708-3087.
- Oppenheimer, P. and Clarke, E. and Cupit, O. and Delabre, Izabela and Dodson, A. and Guindon, M. and Hatto, A. and Lam, J. and Lawrence, L. and Melot, C. and Spencer, E. and Wainwright-Déri, E. and Freeman, I. and Hoffmann, M. (2021) The SPOTT Index: a proof-of-concept measure for tracking public disclosure in the Palm Oil industry. Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3, pp. 100042. ISSN 2666-0490.
- Delabre, Izabela and Rodriguez, L. and Miller Smallwood, J. and Scharlemann, J.P.W. and Alcamo, J. and Antonarakis, A.S. and Rowhani, P. and Hazell, R.J. and Aksnes, D.L. and Balvanera, P. and Lundquist, C. and Gresham, C. and Alexander, A.E. and Stenseth, N.C. (2021) Actions on sustainable food production and consumption for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. Science Advances 7 (12), ISSN 2375-2548.
- Alcamo, J. and Thompson, J. and Alexander, A. and Antoniades, A. and Delabre, Izabela and Dolley, J. and Marshall, F. and Menton, M. and Middleton, J. and Sharlemann, J.P.W. (2020) Analysing interactions among the sustainable development goals: findings and emerging issues from local and global studies. Sustainability Science 15, pp. 1561-1572. ISSN 1862-4065.
- Delabre, Izabela and Okereke, C. (2020) Palm oil, power, and participation: the political ecology of social impact assessment. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 3 (3), pp. 642-662. ISSN 2514-8486.
- Dornelles, A.Z. and Boyd, E. and Nunes, R.J. and Boonstra, W.J. and Delabre, Izabela and Denney, J.M. and Grimm, V. and Jentsch, A. and Nicholas, K.A. and Schröter, M. and Seppelt, R. and Settele, J. and Shackelford, N. and Standish, R.J. and Yengoh, G.T. and Oliver, T.H. (2020) Towards a bridging concept for undesirable resilience in social-ecological systems. Global Sustainability 3 (E20), ISSN 2059-4798.
- Delabre, Izabela and Boyd, E. and Brockhaus, M. and Carton, W. and Krause, T. and Newell, P. and Wong, G.Y. and Zelli, F. (2020) Unearthing the myths of global sustainable forest governance. Global Sustainability 3 (e16), ISSN 2059-4798.
- Delabre, Izabela and Alexander, A. and Rodrigues, C. (2019) Strategies for tropical forest protection and sustainable supply chains: challenges and opportunities for alignment with the UN sustainable development goals. Sustainability Science 15, pp. 1637-1651. ISSN 1862-4065.
- de Vos, R. and Stacewicz, Izabela (2018) Spaces for participation and resistance: gendered experiences of oil palm plantation development. Geoforum 96, pp. 217-226. ISSN 0016-7185.
- Okereke, C. and Delabre, Izabela (2018) Stakeholder perceptions of the environmental effectiveness of multi-stakeholder initiatives: evidence from the palm oil, soy, cotton, and timber programs. Society & Natural Resources 31 (11), pp. 1302-1318. ISSN 0894-1920.
- Boyd, E. and Nykvist, B. and Borgstrom, S. and Stacewicz, Izabela (2015) Anticipatory governance for social-ecological resilience. Ambio 44, pp. 149-161. ISSN 0044-7447.
Book Review
Book Section
- Delabre, Izabela and Nolan, C. (2021) Barriers to zero tropical deforestation and ‘Opening up’ sustainable and just transitions. In: Beckmann, V. (ed.) Transitioning to Sustainable Life on Land. Transitioning to Sustainability. MDPI Books.
- Delabre, Izabela and Nolan, C. and Jespersen, K. and Gallemore, C. and Alexander, A. (2021) Sustainable production of forest-risk commodities: governance and disarticulations. In: Bali Swain, R. and Sweet, S. (eds.) Sustainable Consumption and Production: Challenges and Development. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 209-226. ISBN 9783030563707.