The Transition(s) Lab is a platform for understanding and shaping transitions – in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond.
The primary theme is sustainability transitions – that is, systemic changes toward near-zero emissions, climate resilient societies, renewable energy systems, regenerative land-use, circular economies, post-consumerism, and more.
A secondary theme is digital transformations and the risks and opportunities of new digital technologies, especially insofar as these accelerate or undermine sustainability transitions.
The third, overarching theme is the social, economic and political context within which transitions occur. For transitions to materialize, they must occur within the world as it is, rather than a world of, say, perfect knowledge or identical values. Successfully orchestrating transitions requires a strong sense of reality and, relatedly, a grasp of strategy.
Your subscription makes this effort worthwhile, and creates the opportunity for The Transition(s) Lab to evolve and grow. Ngā mihi nui – thank you!
The Shift
By signing up, you'll receive The Shift, an essay-style newsletter with cutting-edge analysis on the politics of transitions in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally. Expect an emphasis on policy, governance and political theory, but also ethics, economics, finance, communications, psychology, ecology, philosophy and more.
The Brief
You'll also receive The Brief to stay up-to-date with the state of knowledge on transition-related topics, such as policy design, empirical economics, behaviour change, and technological innovation. By signing up to newsletters, you'll receive these decision-relevant briefings on current issues, short-form literature reviews, and critical syntheses of existing research.
The Pointillist
Finally, you'll also receive The Pointillist to help you join the dots in a rapidly evolving landscape. Expect links and succinct updates on new reports, insights, journal articles, charts, systems maps and more.
About the author
Dr David Hall is a climate action expert, based in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Currently, he is Policy Director at the Toha Network, which is building digital infrastructure for nature and climate action.
Previous roles include co-founder of Rewiring Aotearoa; conceptual designer of Trees That Count; and co-founder of the Climate Innovation Lab in partnership with ANZ. Through the latter project, he authored (or co-authored) reports on sustainable finance, forest finance, nature finance and adaptation finance.
He has published widely, often around the theme of sustaining legitimacy for climate action. He has authored (or co-authored) writing on motivations for climate action, consent for climate action, social licence for the forestry sector, political economy of emissions pricing, climate expertise in democratic politics, sustainable finance innovation, policy mixes for climate change, community-led transitions, and integrated approaches to climate adaptation. He has contributed chapters to books on sustainable finance, political psychology, climate resilient societies, climate governance, and environmental policy. He also edited a collection of essays, A Careful Revolution: Towards a Low-Emissions Future, about sustainability transitions in Aotearoa New Zealand.
He holds a DPhil in Politics from University of Oxford. From 2022–2025, he designed and taught the Climate Action course at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), which explored with students how the social sciences can contribute to climate action. Since 2019, he is also co-principal investigator of the AUT Living Laboratories programme for nature-based solutions. With support from Whakatupu Aotearoa Foundation, this now includes an ecological education programme, Learning from Nature, that involves school visits and teaching tools.
Other past and present roles include Independent Specialist Advisor for the New Zealand Government's Inquiry into Climate Adaptation; Member of the Technical Expert Group (TEG) for the Aotearoa New Zealand Sustainable Finance Taxonomy; Contributing Author to IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group 2) chapter on Australasia; Member of the Forestry Ministerial Advisory Group; Director of the Environmental Defence Society (EDS); Energy Fellow for Ara Ake; Co-chair of the Independent Advisory Group for Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland's Climate Plan; Advisory Group for Climate Connect Aotearoa; Member of The Aotearoa Circle's Sustainable Finance and Biodiversity workstreams; and Honorary Fellow of the Hanken Centre for Accounting, Finance and Governance.