Alexis McGivern

Head of Stakeholder Engagement, Oxford Net Zero

Profile

Alexis McGivern is Head of Stakeholder Engagement and a Research Fellow at Oxford Net Zero, working to translate academic research on net zero into guidance for corporations, civil society, policymakers and the standards community to reach net zero by 2050. She works to strengthen the integrity of net zero targets, including through addressing justice and equity concerns of net zero.

Alexis co-created and runs the Global Youth Climate Training Programme, a collaboration between Oxford and the Global Youth Coalition, which has trained 5,000 young climate activists on the UNFCCC negotiations since 2023. She co-chairs the Race to Zero Professional Services Providers Working Group, convening a diverse group of stakeholders to better define what ‘high integrity net zero’ looks like for professional services providers like law firms, consultancies and ad agencies. She sits as part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Technical Working Group for the Corporate Standard, which is currently being revised for the first time in 20 years. She is Co-Programme Director of the Oxford Sustainable Business Programme, a sustainability leadership course in Oxford.

Alexis previously completed a dual degree as a Pershing Square Scholar at the University of Oxford, undertaking an MPhil at the School of Geography and the Environment. Her MPhil looked at the politics of waste incineration and the communities who are resisting the installation of new incinerators in the UK. She also completed an MBA at the Saïd Business School to understand the language and motivations of businesses to create long-lasting change across the stakeholders needed to address the climate emergency.

She has a background of community organising for refugee rights and asylum seeker integration in Switzerland, where she grew up, and also worked to support low-income households in Oxford during the COVID-19 pandemic through mutual aid work.

Publications

Journal (8)

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Foster V and others, ‘Development Transitions for Fossil Fuel-Producing Low and lower–middle Income Countries in a Carbon-Constrained World’ (2024) 9 Nature Energy 242

Khosla R and others, ‘Can ‘Net Zero’ Still Be an Instrument of Climate Justice?’ (2023) 18 Environmental Research Letters

Ettinger J and others, ‘Breaking the Climate Spiral of Silence: Lessons from a COP26 Climate Conversations Campaign’ (2023) 176 Climatic Change 22

Helm L and others, ‘Impacts of Plastic Waste Management Strategies’ (2023) 31 Environmental Reviews 45

Murphy E and others, ‘A Decision Framework for Estimating the Cost of Marine Plastic Pollution Interventions.’ (2022) 36 Conservation biology. e13827

Doorga J and others, ‘A Geospatial Approach for Addressing Long-Term Solid Waste Management Issues: Extracting Value from Waste’ (2022) 334 Journal of Cleaner Production 130282

Borrelle S and others, ‘Predicted Growth in Plastic Waste Exceeds Efforts to Mitigate Plastic Pollution.’ (2020) 369 Science (New York, N.Y.) 1515

Herr D and others, ‘Pathways for Implementation of Blue Carbon Initiatives’ (2017) 27 Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 116