Impact case study database

Finding ways to transition to a low carbon economy is a key policy challenge across the world that has implications for all major industries. However, it has not always been clear how central banks might contribute to new green policies without taking on additional financial risk. Galanis’ research on the interconnection between sustainable banking practices and the macroeconomy has helped challenge misconceptions about this risk, providing the Vice President for the European Parliament, the economic adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Hellas and the Labour Party (UK) with evidence that allows them to advocate for new green financial initiatives.

Informing green financial policy recommendations and pledges

Council on Economic Policies (CEP) propose that banks contribute to low carbon economy: In November 2017, Galanis’ co-authors, Dafermos and Nikolaidi, presented their research analysis on green fiscal policy at a CEP workshop on ‘Central Banking and Green Finance’. The CEP went on to release proposals regarding how central banks can help the transition towards a low carbon economy in a discussion paper entitled, ‘Central Banks and the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy’ (2018). The paper cites Galanis and his co-researchers report in relation to questions about whether green quantitative easing is a realistic and financially stable option for central banks [S1].

EU Parliament propose amendments for a sustainable finance bill: Galanis gave a presentation on his research to the EU parliament in 2017, whereafter MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Vice President of the European Parliament and his Cabinet maintained close contact, initiating continued discussions on issues regarding green financial policies and drawing on Galanis’ two articles in Ecological Economics [R3, R4]. An email from the Office of the Vice President of the European Parliament confirms how Papadimoulis used Galanis’ research: “As a direct result [..], Mr Papadimoulis proposed amendments to the ‘Sustainable Finance’ report of the Committee of Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament (ECON) in October 2017; citing the two papers” [S2]. While the bill was not passed, the citation and Papadimoulis’ subsequent thinking on amendments to EU sustainable finance reports is indicative of the interest in Galanis’ analysis of sustainable banking initiatives and the use of the research to inform political debates and EU legislation [S3].

Australian think tank cites research to support claim that green initiatives would not be ‘economy wrecking’: In May 2019, the Australia Institute, an independent public policy think tank, published a discussion paper claiming that Australia could achieve ambitious green targets without severely impacting on the economy. Their evaluation countered claims by the Business Council of Australia (BCA) which suggested that increased action on climate change would be ‘economy wrecking’ and raised questions about the Australian government’s approach to environmental policies. Citing Galanis’ co-authored paper [R3] as evidence of the, ‘significant cost of inaction’ and specifically the systemic financial risk associated with ‘excess investment in fossil fuel and other high carbon assets’, the Australian Institute’s report contributes to their mission to challenge misconceptions by sourcing robust research and applying it to real world problems [S4].

WWF Hellas advise the Greek Government on the creation of a Hellenic Development Bank: The DEFINE model’s analysis on the relationship between green finance and financial stability was originally developed in conjunction with the New Economics Foundation (NEF). Former NEF Senior Economist, Oliver Vardakoulias, who now works as Economic Policy Coordinator for the WWF Hellas, describes how he used DEFINE’s subsequent analysis to further the work of the WWF and to guide his recommendations to the Greek Government:

“After joining WWF Greece in 2018, I have been using the publications and research results of Dr Galanis and his co-authors (a) to lobby financial regulators for the need of investigating the links between Greece’s financial sector, macroeconomic stability and environmental sustainability; and (b) to formulate specific recommendations to the Greek government in the context of the creation of the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB) in 2019.” [S5]

Labour Party use new information about the financial viability of green banking systems to endorse their proposals for a Green New Deal: Galanis’ research has also played a role in the Labour Party’s 2019 Election Manifesto and has contributed to their commitment to a Green New Deal. In October 2018 the Labour Party launched ‘The Green Transformation: Labour’s environment policy’ marking Labour’s new focus on climate action, which paved the way for the party’s commitment to a ‘green industrial revolution’, announced by Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell MP (2015-2020) in June 2019.

Labour’s pledge included a review of the role of the financial sector in helping with climate crisis, as described in the subsequent report: ‘Finance and Climate Change: A Progressive Green Finance Strategy for the UK’. Galanis’ co-researchers, Nikolaidi and Dafermos were on the external review group that produced this report and the findings of the Ecological Economics paper on ‘Climate Change’ directly informed five of the key recommendations [S6]:

• Make climate-related financial disclosures mandatory

• Green the mandate of the Bank of England by re-interpreting and/or modifying it

• Green the collateral framework of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Operations

• Use the NIB to steer bank credit towards low-carbon projects

• Green the Bank of England’s Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme

The report, published in November 2019, attracted considerable attention, as evidenced through articles in The Financial Times, Bloomberg and ITV news [S7].

In September 2019 delegates at the Labour Party conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of a Green New Deal programme which pointed to ‘radical policies to increase social and economic justice’. After the surprise announcement of a general election in October 2019, Labour launched their Election Manifesto which identified green financial investments as part of their commitment to ‘A Green Industrial Revolution’. Labour’s pledge included the introduction of a ‘Sustainable Investment Board’, costing environmental impacts into fiscal decisions made by the Office for Budget Responsibility and ensuring the UK’s financial sector is more involved in efforts to tackle climate crisis:

“We will do this by improving the fitness of our financial authorities to mobilise green investment and by giving them powers to manage the risk to financial stability posed by short-sighted investment in polluting assets.” [S8]

Leading campaign group, Friends of the Earth, noted that Labour’s election pledges are the ‘greenest’/strongest on climate change interventions and while Labour lost the 2019 election, they continue to support a green new deal, as evident in declarations regarding post-pandemic financial support that advocate radical green investment programmes to address the climate emergency.

Bond’s rigorous research demonstrated that core work design factors consistently predicted employee wellbeing and productivity [R2, R3, R4]. The HSE used this research to develop policies, guidelines and resources relating to work-related stress, which, in turn, have gone on to impact organisational approaches to managing employee stress throughout the REF period, August 2013-2020. Bond’s research also demonstrated the ubiquitous wellbeing and productivity benefits of enhancing one particular work design factor, job control [R1, R5]. Two consultancy projects led by Bond used this knowledge to facilitate improved leadership and organisational change, respectively, in order to enhance the performance of two sets of elite professionals. Specifically, these projects focussed on enhancing: (1) the medal take of the BPA TT team in 2015/16; and (2) mission-critical operations in ESA personnel in 2017/18.

Impact 1. Impacting organisational approaches to managing employee stress. Bond and colleagues’ research contributed to the development of the HSE’s policies, guidelines and resources relating to work-related stress, with their research report in 2006, A business case for the management standards for stress [R4], being particularly influential. The HSE’s former Senior Occupational Psychologist, Stress Priority Programme Team, Steve Lee, states that Bond’s “evidence-based approach…made a significant contribution to the work being taken forward by the Health and Safety Executive.” Lee continues: “The development of the business case was essential for being able to show return-on-investment and provided an economic argument that reinforced, and made more palatable, an employer’s duty to assess risk. This work enabled the regulator to galvanise its position.” The HSE’s work has since gone on to impact organisational approaches to managing employee stress and according to Lee “remains the benchmark for assessing organisational performance.” Lee continues: “I now work as the Head of Health and Wellbeing within the NHS, overseeing the health and wellbeing offer to over 1.3 million staff. The work that Goldsmiths undertook to produce, especially around the adoption of preventative approach to health and wellbeing, is now influencing the agenda within Europe’s largest employer.” [S1]. Over this REF period, August 2013-2020, the HSE continue to provide opportunities for organisations to implement their approach in order to better manage employee stress and in 2017 launched a stress microsite to provide advice and resources to that end. Bond’s research continues to inform the HSE’s ‘business case’ for promoting the Stress Management Standards, as evidenced in Appendix 1: ‘Business Case Preparation’ of their March 2019 Workbook; ‘ Tackling Work-Related Stress Using the Management Standards Approach,’ (March 2019) [S2].

Impact 2. Increasing medal take of the BPA TT team through enhancing autonomy/control in athletes. Paralympic TT is professionally played in over 100 countries and is the third largest Paralympic Sport in terms of the number of professional athletes. In the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games (held in London), the British team achieved a total of 3 medals (having won none in 2009). Keen to improve the number of medals won (i.e., the ‘medal take’) by British Paralympic teams, UK Sport invested in measures to improve the world ranking of those teams in 2015 and to increase their medal take at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio.

Since 2010, Bond has consulted with Team GB and ParalympicsGB to train sport psychologists who worked primarily with these elite athletes. One of these psychologists, Dr Tim Pitt, former Performance Psychologist at English Institute of Sport (EIS), recommended Bond, and his evidence-based approach, expertise and holistic methods to the BPA TT Head Coach, Greg Baker. Baker had won a financial award from UK Sport to develop effective leadership skills and to empower an effective dynamic within his team. This award reflected UK Sport Performance Director (2009-present) Gorazd Vecko’s ambition to build a “positive and dynamic team environment designed to enable players to realise their potential and achieve at their highest level” (BPA TT team official website, Sept 2020). With his award, Baker hired Bond to apply his research and practical skills surrounding improving the performance of workers and athletes by increasing their autonomy/control, which started by enhancing effective leadership. Bond began working with the BPA TT team in April 2015, and his worksite intervention involved 1:1 and group sessions with coaches to train them in Transformational Leadership (TL) techniques that were enhanced by Bond’s own research projects. A core aim of TL is to train leaders on how to provide their workers/athletes with more autonomy/control over their work/training, and to teach leaders ways they can achieve this aim, so as to enhance worker/athlete motivation and commitment.

Bond’s TL programme is directly cited in Sections 2 and 3 of Baker’s report on the project and Baker went on to reflect on the success of the programme, highlighting an expected shift to a more involved, autonomous and participative decision-making leadership culture. Specifically, Baker wrote that through Bond’s approach: “Passive-avoidant leadership significantly reduced…which is a positive change, with the athletes and support staff noticing the coaches asking more open questions than telling, being more involved when needed, making decisions when needed, and implementing positive changes where applicable.” Furthermore, Baker wrote that through Bond’s approach: “coaches were trained as to how to allow athletes to have their own voice in feedback and within their training programmes, and these skills were used in regular one to one meetings prevented coaches from avoiding or overly controlling these conversations” [S3].

Bond’s intervention ultimately contributed to Vecko’s ambition for the BPA’s TT Team. In the 2015 World Championships the BPA TT team exceeded UK Sport’s target and placed joint third in the world (up from 13 in 2012). Twelve players qualified for the 2016 Paralympics (up from 9 in 2012), and the team went on to win 2 gold and 1 bronze medals. The impact of Bond’s intervention in contributing to this outcome is corroborated by Pitt who stated that: “The TT team ultimately exceeded expectations” and “the training that Bond delivered which improved the relationship between the coaches and the athletes was part of this journey.” [S4].

Impact 3. Enhancing mission-critical operations in ESA personnel through increasing job control. In 2018, two teams at the ESA’s Astronaut Training Centre in Cologne (Spacecraft Communicators, who communicate with the astronauts on-board the International Space Station (ISS); and Bio-Medical Engineers, who represent the Medical Operations community in the Flight Control Team) underwent an organisational restructure. Having heard about Bond’s research at the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) conference in Seville (2017), Antonio Fortunato, Deputy Lead of the Astronaut Operations Team from ESA, approached Bond to see if he could help them facilitate the integration of their highly skilled mission-critical personnel into one division.

The proposed restructure at ESA, including the need to integrate mission critical teams, left employees feeling uneasy, to the extent that some were leaving the organisation as a result of the proposed changes. Bond and colleagues worked with Fortunato, and key employees at ESA, to design and manage an organisational change strategy that facilitated employees’ understanding for the need for this organisational restructure, and to identify and mitigate perceived safety concerns. Fortunato states that it was Bond’s “evidence-based approach to enhancing job control that led us to better define role specifications, management skills, job discretion abilities, and helped us to integrate the new structures, teams, and processes.” According to Fortunato this successful outcome was not at all assured, and he was particularly pleased to notice how “restructured teams interacted more effectively and creatively to ensure our astronaut’s health, safety, and efficient work” [S5].

ESA personnel reported that ISS mission critical operations improved as a result of Bond’s restructured strategies and Fortunato asserts that this occurred because of the enhanced job control experienced by the mission-critical personnel. Firstly, this job control allowed staff opportunities to make decisions based on their expert knowledge, skills and abilities. Fortunato states “The impact of the restructure was most salient as the team’s new sense of autonomy allowed them to effectively define the required changes in processes and procedures, which translated in meaningful proposals to the management team.” Secondly, this job control allowed staff to communicate more effectively with the astronauts. Fortunato continues “In addition, given this heightened sense of autonomy and agency, they found that they were more receptive to, and better able to probe, the moods of astronauts and communicate with them more effectively and efficiently, providing a more conducive environment for astronauts to conduct effective operations in the complex technical environment of the International Space Station” [S5]

Due to the success of the ESA project and evidencing the value that the ESA placed upon Bond’s worksite intervention, ESA and their partner agencies (e.g., the Austrian Space Forum, 2019/20) commissioned Bond to undertake further consultancy work.

Bond and colleagues’ research programme has produced both the evidence-based training approach for improving employee psychological skills, and the psychometric instruments needed to demonstrate how those improvements occur [R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6]. This work has impacted the practice of: (1) a global community of specialist ACT trainers focussed on improving the lives of people at work; (2) educators of trainee psychologists on HE courses who offer specialist training on workplace wellbeing; and (3) a Swedish not-for-profit organisation offering free to use self-development apps to create positive change in the lives of individual users.

Impact 1. A global community of specialist ACT trainers. Evidence of Bond and colleagues’ efficacious ACT interventions in workplace settings has influenced the demand for, and practices of, specialist trainers who can help employees to develop psychological skills for managing the increasing challenges and complexities of their workplace settings. Indeed, Professor Steve Hayes, creator of ACT and a world leader in psychological service delivery, states that “Bunce and Bond’s 2000 research paper, Mediators of change in emotion-focused and problem-focused worksite stress management interventions …opened the door to a workplace training approach that has had a significant impact on the world of work.” Hayes continues: “His [Bond’s] openness to sharing and training helped lead to a world community of ACT trainers. This includes scores who work with employees to improve wellbeing and performance.” Speaking specifically to impact over the REF period, Hayes states “The main ACT association has grown 36% to about 9,500 members; the list of recognized trainers is up over 50%; there are now chapters in 27 countries in addition to the US and the UK and nearly every one of these has someone doing ACT in the workplace. His [Bond’s] work on stress in the workplace, on measures of psychological flexibility, and on the relation of psychological flexibility processes to worker effectiveness has given ACT developers and trainers a clear target and a focus they did not have before. Organizational consultants around the world have been influenced as a result.” [S1].

The world community of ACT trainers discussed by Hayes, consists of approximately 100 accredited ACT trainers, located in 17 countries, and who are listed on the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science (ACBS) website (September 2020) [S2a], where Bond’s research papers, training protocols and psychometric instruments are recommended reading and resources for members [S2b, S2c, S2d].

Drawing on Bond and colleagues’ research, practitioners and accredited ACT trainers, like Dr Frederik Livheim, CEO Livskompass and Clinical Psychologist at The Karolinska Institute (KI) in Stockholm, Sweden have formed consultancy businesses that have impacted thousands of individuals over this REF period, August 2013-2020. Livheim states “My work…[has] been heavily informed by Professor Frank Bond’s research in this field; and, in particular, his work on psychological flexibility, and how he has evolved it to inform the use of ACT in the workplace and for employees. Through his work, I believe that I have been able to help thousands of people.” Livheim describes how Bond’s research has informed both his development of treatment protocols and his professional training activities in his consultancy work, over the last 10 years. Regarding protocol development, Livheim states “I created a detailed treatment protocol…named “ACT - to promote mental health, resilience and productivity” that works well for adults in their roles as employees and in their other life settings.” Livheim also notes how this protocol has been modified to benefit other recipients: “Given the success of this protocol…I led a team that adapted it to target troubled youth, ages 12-20 years, titled, “ACT – Living life full out.” Regarding training, Livheim continues that his initial protocol, in turn, has been used “for training more than 2,000 professionals in ACT, in a group format. They have then used this training in their own clinical work, as well as to train other professionals in ACT. In Sweden alone, our records, and ongoing collaborations, lead my team to estimate, with some level of precision, that somewhere between 300,000-600,000 people have been trained, using this group-based format.” [S3].

The wider adoption of Bond’s ACT workplace training methods is further evidenced in a sample of reviews for his practitioner-oriented books, including The Mindful and Effective Employee: A Training Programme for Maximising Wellbeing and Effectiveness using ACT Therapy (Flaxman, Bond, & Livheim, 2013) and The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Stress Reduction: Using ACT to Manage Stress, Build Resilience and Create the Life you Want (Livheim, Bond, Elk, & Hedensjo, 2018). Posted after 1^st August 2013, readers note: “So far I have used it with one company with very positive results. They looked up to Bond and Flaxman’s research which impressed them.” (Amazon, reviewed in the UK 17^th December 2013); “This was a really amazing book to learn more about how ACT can help employees and organizations...or just how mindfulness practices can help a different population.” (Amazon, reviewed in the United States, 15^th April 2019). [S4a, S4b, S4c, S4d].

Impact 2. Educators of trainee psychologists on HE courses. Industry interest in Bond and colleagues’ ACT workplace training methods and psychometric instruments has led to this work impacting the practices of HE educators of trainee psychologists. For example, Dr Paul Flaxman, Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Reader in Organisational Psychology at City, University of London, states that “Since 2014, Bond’s research into ACT and psychological flexibility has directly informed my teaching on the MSc curriculum.” Flaxman goes on to give specific examples of how Bond and colleagues’ research papers are used in the curriculum of City’s MSc in Organisational Psychology, stating that in their module entitled Employee Well-Being “students complete an exercise that involves closely examining Bond’s research articles on the measurement of psychological flexibility, both in a general sense (Bond et al., 2011) and more specifically in relation to flexibility at work (Bond et al., 2013)” and “Bond’s co-authored article with Hayes and others (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, & Lillis, 2006) is considered a major ‘positioning’ paper when teaching about ACT and psychological flexibility. This paper is on our core reading list.” Flaxman indicates the reach of this work when stating that “Each year, we have around 45 MSc students who utilise these publications as part of their training” and concludes “In sum, I can confirm that Bond’s research explicitly informs the training I offer to trainee psychologists” [S5].

Impact 3. A Swedish not-for-profit organisation offering free to use self-development apps. Since 2018, Bond has worked with 29k, a not-for-profit organisation based in Stockholm, who provide free to use personal growth training programmes to create ‘meaningful change’ in the lives of individual users. 29k have adopted Bond and colleague’s research on ACT training and psychological flexibility to form the core structure of several cutting-edge wellbeing and self-development apps that are being created and implemented. Indeed, CEO and co-founder of 29k, Erik Fernholm, states his appreciation “of the role that Professor Frank Bond has had in informing our ‘group-based’ training apps, including ones that draw heavily on his research into psychological flexibility and ACT. Indeed, this work has contributed to at least three of 29k’s modules on topics such as stress reduction, Covid-19 recovery, and coping with distress.” Fernholm continues “Bond’s research has given us a new and fundamental way of measuring and conceptualising psychological improvements for our courses, such as on stress reduction. It also has informed us regarding a lot of content choices, UX-design, and how we produce our content. In short, working with Bond has significantly increased the scientific rigour and quality of our courses.” [S6].

As a result of Bond’s contributions, Fernholm describes how 29k have been able to have important real-world impact. In one major project, 29k implemented a wellbeing intervention for the Swedish government to “counteract rising sickness rates and promote a sustainable working life for all government sectors” [S7]. Fernholm states that “we have together been able to help the Swedish government implement a scalable, technically novel solution at a moment in time when so many of their employees are suffering.” He continues “10% of the governmental organizations in Sweden have now signed up to the stress reduction course since we launched it three months ago—which shows unprecedented uptake.” Furthermore, Fernholm notes that benefits of the apps go beyond the Swedish state: “As of January 2021, 29k’s app has had 60,000 downloads, and the feedback from the stress reduction courses has had very high ratings for “lovability” (> 4.5 on a 5-point scale), and users highly recommend the course to their peers. Perhaps most satisfyingly, these users also report significantly improved relationships with their colleagues and decreased stress levels.” [S6].

User reviews of the 29k apps from across the globe indicate their usefulness for helping people to reduce stress and live more meaningful lives. For example, the app “Grow, with others” has user reviews totalling well over 1000. Users note: “This app will guide you within to shed negative self talk and assist in unburdening your soul from deep wounds and giving back to yourself in a way that will make you feel whole.” (App Store, reviewed 8^th February 2020); “This app is exactly what I needed. With the stressors in my life, big and small, I need tools to help me cope.” (App Store, reviewed 15^th February 2020) [S8].