In the concluding Reynolds Lecture, Dame Fiona Reynolds argued that many of today’s environmental, economic and social challenges stem from fragmented policymaking. Aditi Rajpal explores her call to place nature, beauty and belonging at the heart of a more integrated, place-based approach to public policy.
At a time when climate change is no longer a prediction but an evidenced reality, when did nature become a luxury, beauty become invisible, and place disappear from public policy? What if the loss of coastal cities, diminishing public trust, rising spatial inequality, and the erasure of community identity are not isolated problems, but indications of the consistently fragmented approaches to public policy? These were the central questions underpinning Dame Fiona Reynolds’ concluding Reynolds Lecture, Nature, People, and Place: The Mess We Are In and a Possible Pathway Out.
Drawing on the themes explored across the five-year annual lecture series, and her own book, The Fight for Beauty, Fiona made a compelling case for restoring beauty, belonging, and nature as the connective tissue binding environmental protection, economic growth, and societal needs, calling for a deeper understanding of long-term, place-based policy.
Diagnosing ‘the mess we are in’
Many of today’s environmental, social and economic challenges point to a deeper systemic problem. Fiona argued that humans have already disrupted the delicate balance of climate and, unlike previous generations, we are knowingly engineering our own extinction. This raises ethical questions about our responsibility towards nature and to future generations. But the problem goes beyond the environment.
Fiona highlighted how recent policy has focused on the needs of the public in silos, while relying on measures like GDP that do not reflect the realities of how people live. Chronic illness is rising, diets are shifting towards ultra-processed foods, and inequality is rising sharply. She drew parallels with the UK’s North-South divide to illustrate how these pressures are felt unevenly across regions, and noted a growing disconnect between people and the places they live.
Reflecting on her time at the National Audit Office, Fiona suggested that today’s challenges need lateral rather than vertical thinking. Governments have become accustomed to working within departmental silos and attempting to deliver outcomes under tight budgets, thereby losing sight of what actually matters to people. A focus on economic growth alone risks fuelling public scepticism and frustration. Successful progress means meeting material needs, such as health, education, food security and jobs, but also improving quality of life through intangible assets including the beauty of nature, culture, trust, and a sense of belonging to a place.
A pathway out by reclaiming beauty and place
Fiona outlined an optimistic vision for change built around three principles: long-term thinking, a regenerative economy, and a renewed seriousness about nature and beauty. Each of these ideas share a common purpose, to move beyond fragmented thinking by connecting nature, people and place.
One of the lecture’s most distinctive themes was the role of beauty in policy. Drawing on ideas explored in her book, Fiona discussed how beauty and an appreciation of life hold far greater weight than material needs and conventional measures of growth. The beauty of nature, she suggested, is not an optional luxury. It connects people to nature and fosters a sense of belonging and identity. Yet beauty has largely been sidelined in political discourse in favour of economic priorities, reflecting a failure to understand what people really value. Fiona called on policymakers to adopt a systems-thinking approach, rather than continuing to tackle challenges in isolation.
Fiona turned next to place-based policymaking. Place, she argued, is the foundation of community, and policy should reflect both the aspirations of people and the values that a place represents. Yet policymaking often remains ‘place-blind’, with top-down decisions made in silos, which erodes public trust. Meaningful change requires greater integration across government departments and stronger collaboration between central government and local authorities in the allocation of resources.
From this diagnosis, Fiona proposed three principals, with beauty and people at their core.
The first is long-term, purpose-driven thinking. Ecosystems and biodiversity have needs of their own, and policy must establish nature’s rights, not merely for our benefit, but for future generations. This requires a long-term moral compass and policies that reflect what we stand for as a society. The Future Generations Act in Wales offers one example of this in practice, embedding sustainability, social wellbeing, cultural identity, and natural landscapes into a policy framework.
The second principal is a regenerative economy. Without economic systems built on regenerative principals, Fiona argued, our environmental goals will remain out of reach.
The third is genuine devolution. Communities need more freedom within a shared national framework to deliver effective place-based policy. Since place fundamentally represents culture, history, heritage, nature, and people, trusting local institutions is essential to place-based leadership. Greater Manchester and York were cited as successful examples, with both focussing on the everyday fabric of people’s lives. Fiona closed by returning to the central theme of the lecture; that beauty, in its deepest sense, can help reconnect people with place, and in doing so, make policy ambitions more meaningful.
Building a vision for the future
The final lecture in the Reynolds series closed with a timely reminder that achieving climate targets, meeting economic goals, and delivering benefits to communities are not competing priorities but interlinked ambitions. Having reached a point where nature is treated as a luxury rather than an essential need, the challenge now is to reinstate it, along with the sense of beauty and belonging that place represents, at the heart of policy making. Fiona offered an optimistic vision for the future, one that transcends fragmented thinking and recognises the intertwined connection between nature, people, and place.
Watch a recording of the lecture
View photos from of the lecture on Flickr.
Event review by Aditi Rajpal, CSaP Policy Intern (April to July 2026); PhD candidate, University of Cambridge.
Lord Richard Wilson established this annual lecture series in 2022 in honour of Dame Fiona Reynolds, his successor as Master of Emmanuel College and is organised by CSaP, Bennett School of Public Policy and Emmanuel College. This will be the final lecture in the series.