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15 April 2010: New ESRC funding for sustainable consumption research

In collaboration with colleagues at a number of Universities including Manchester, Lancaster and Edinburgh, CRESI’s Professor Mark Harvey and Dr Ben Anderson have secured substantial ESRC funding to develop their work on sustainable consumption as part of the Sustainable Practices Group of the ESRC Sustainable Behaviour Group.

Lead by Professor Alan Warde at Manchester, the Sustainable Practices Group intends to achieve new and relevant understandings of the processes which lead to radical changes in behaviour and to provide advice on realistic strategies to encourage more sustainable behaviours.  It will move beyond a focus on individual behaviour (‘micro’) and toward a better understanding of how practices of consumption and production evolve in particular contexts through interactions between ‘macro’, ‘meso’ and ‘micro’ level processes. In particular, the objectives of the Group will be:

• To develop fresh understandings of how social practices change and how they might become more sustainable
• - To encourage theoretical reflection about the difficulties of change in behaviour and to analyse alternative theories (lay and scholarly) about the motors of social action
• To diffuse an alternative understanding of how to approach behaviour change in relation to mitigating the impact of climate change
• To make public officials and policy makers aware of the levers for change which are identified and emphasized by the practice-theoretical approach to routine behaviour
• To influence the making of government policy at all levels and organizational practices of corporations with regard to encouragement of sustainable behaviours.