Chiara is a DPhil candidate at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, where she researches the social forces that frame and constrain how the European Commission understands financial climate responsibility in the context of the EU’s sustainable finance framework. Her doctoral project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and supervised by Associate Professor Bettina Lange.
In particular, her research documents how private voluntary initiatives have impacted the concepts, narratives, and framings that underpin EU financial climate obligations and unpacks the taken-for-granted assumptions, paradoxes, and blind spots this has created.
By mapping the influences that frame and constrain EU climate lawmaking, she shifts the analytical perspective from the policy content (interpreting existing legal norms, evaluating their effectiveness, and proposing reforms) towards the policymaking environment.
To do so, Chiara draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork to make visible the informal practices, social relations and norms not captured in official documents but significantly influence how the European Commission understands financial climate responsibility and assesses the consistency between financial policy and climate objectives under Art. 6(4) European Climate Law.
Chiara holds a BA in Law, with a focus on international and EU environmental law, as well as an Advanced Diploma in Economics and an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, where she was a scholar of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Her MPhil dissertation explored the doubts and frustrations of sustainability professionals behind the corporate sustainability façade.
Before joining Oxford, Chiara gained experience as an ESG analyst at a European bank, in environmental consulting, at an ecological economics think tank, and within a human rights organization. She has also contributed to promoting youth voices through storytelling and to EU climate law research.
