“Many sustainability initiatives focus on companies closest to consumers, but far less attention is given to the upstream actors who actually produce the raw materials driving deforestation.”
Assistant Prof. Juliet Lu is jointly appointed with UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) and the Faculty of Forestry’s Department of Forest Resources Management. A political ecologist and China scholar, her research examines how Chinese companies invest in land-intensive projects across Southeast Asia and how these investments shape land politics and environmental governance.
Much of Prof. Lu’s recent work traces how large land acquisitions are negotiated, financed, and managed, and their environmental impacts. She works with NGOs and sustainability initiatives seeking to reduce deforestation linked to rubber production. Her research also examines China’s growing international engagement on environmental issues, including participation in multilateral institutions and commitments to reduce emissions and overseas coal investments.
“I see China as genuinely seeing the environment and global environmental governance as an area that it is very committed to cooperating on… as China’s leaders gain more experience they’re seeing the environment as indivisible from development issues that they need to address.”
Learn more about Juliet Lu’s research here.
