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Please also see: Our Research Page The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption: Seeds of Change
This new book that champions community action for sustainable consumption was written by Gill Seyfang. Farmer’s markets, community allotments, time banks and straw-bale housing are held up as pioneering ‘seeds of change’ in a groundbreaking new book based on research carried out in ENV. Author Dr Gill Seyfang argues that these small-scale community initiatives for sustainability represent alternative ways of organising social and economic life, and could potentially grow and transform mainstream society. “Climate change is forcing us to rethink our lifestyles, but green consumerism won’t save the planet”, says Dr Seyfang, adding “mainstream approaches simply cannot deliver the radical changes we need for a sustainable society.” In ‘The New Economics Of Sustainable Consumption: Seeds of Change’ (published by Palgrave MacMillan) she offers a fresh look at sustainable consumption, presenting a holistic ‘New Economics’ approach. She then explores how grassroots community actions for sustainability are putting this into practice by experimenting with new ways of working, measuring value and progress, and expressing ecological citizenship. Local organic food systems, low-impact eco-housing, and complementary currencies are examined to measure their success at delivering localized economies and inclusive communities, enabling people to reduce their ecological footprints, harnessing collective action and building new forms of social organization. Viewing these activities as innovative ‘green niches’, the book explores the opportunities for grassroots innovations to spread and influence wider society, and the barriers preventing them achieving their potential. “Sustainable development policies commonly overlook the benefits of small-scale community initiatives like these, yet they do deliver significant social, economic and environmental benefits”, argues Dr Seyfang. She proposes that government should support the growth and development of what she terms ‘grassroots innovations’, in order to harness the transformative potential of these activities and help achieve policy goals. Dr Gill Seyfang holds a prestigious RCUK Academic Fellowship in the School of Environmental Sciences, and is developing a programme of research around Low-Carbon Lifestyles. “The New Economics Of Sustainable Consumption: Seeds Of Change” by Gill Seyfang (2009) is published by Palgrave Macmillan [Hardback £50.00 978-0-230-52533-7] ENV Researcher Awarded Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen Prize for Young Scientist
Life-Changing Sustainable Consumption
Dr Seyfang presented her research on the new economics of sustainable consumption, and made the case that individualistic models to behaviour change are limited by their inability to address wider structural factors, and the range of practices which these institutions encourage. Her work proposes that the existence of alternative 'systems of provision' such as farmers markets or localised energy generation is highly significant in enabling people to change their consumption patterns. Consequently, there is a role for collective and political action to create and support these more sustainable institutions, in addition to the more usual voluntary individual changes encouraged by awareness-raising campaigns. The team hopes to meet again in spring 2009 for an international sustainable development conference, to further pursue the idea of life-changing sustainable consumption opportunities. ENV researcher features prominently in influential parliamentary report A recently published report by the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Select Committee has drawn heavily on the contributions of CSERGE researcher, Dr Duncan Russel. Dr Russel, who provided a written memorandum with Professor Andrew Jordan and gave oral evidence as an expert witness, was quoted no less than 17 time in the Committee’s final report on the structure and operation of government and the challenge of climate change. Dr Russel said, “it is really satisfying to know that the research I am doing in this hugely important area of public policy is attracting the interest of highly influential stakeholders such as the Environmental Audit Committee”. He added, “I’m particularly pleased that they picked up on my broad message that efforts to integrate climate change considerations into UK policy making needs to go well beyond the Prime Minister making occasional speeches. Rather the mantle needs be taken up by all senior actors in government and supported by widespread training and incentives to encourage departmental policy makers to engage with climate change issues in their day-to-day work.” Duncan hopes that some of his more specific recommendations will have some influence on future government action, but much will depend on the tone of the Government’s Official response to the Committee’s report. Further reading: Playing with carbon to reduce our impact on the climate Playing a board game could be the first step in introducing people to the idea of individual carbon allowances and using them to reduce their personal carbon dioxide emissions. A team of researchers in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia is working with environmental charity Global Action Plan to develop two new tools to boost carbon literacy – the skills and knowledge needed to understand and reduce our carbon footprints. Led by Prof Jacquie Burgess, this project builds on existing research on communicating climate change and carbon trading, and translated into hands-on experiences in practical settings through GAP’s outreach and educational work. The first tool is an innovative board game called Carbonopoly which introduces players to the idea of tradable Personal Carbon Allowances, a green initiative tabled by DEFRA and the subject of ongoing research in the Tyndall Centre and the School In this game, each individual is allowed to emit a certain amount of carbon, called carbon allowances. These are measured in carbon credits, which are bought and sold like money. Players must made decisions about how they spend their allocations - if they consume less then their carbon allowance, they will have carbon credits left. On the other hand, if their lifestyles produce more carbon emissions than they are allowed, they will need to buy carbon credits. The second learning tool is a driving efficiency simulator, with a steering wheel and foot-pedals, where players ‘drive’ along computer-simulated roads in various conditions and see the carbon-emission results of different driving styles. Dr Gill Seyfang, one of the researchers on the project commented “Carbon literacy skills will be essential for negotiating the transition to a more sustainable future. We hope these tools will prove to be effective ways of teaching those skills and helping people to think creatively about reducing their carbon footprints”, and colleague Dr Irene Lorenzoni explained “Most people find it very difficult to visualise carbon emissions in relation to personal lifestyles and to reduce their personal impact on the climate. The aim of these tools is to enable us through fun activities to explore how, as part of a community, we can help each other reduce our impact on the climate.” This one-year project is supported by a grant from Carbon Connections, a HEFCE-funded initiative to promote carbon-reduction enterprises. Contact: Changing the climate of policy making During oral evidence given to MPs, CSERGE researcher, Dr Duncan Russel, criticised the Government’s record on integrating climate change considerations into its policy making activities. Dr Russel was invited to appear before the MPs on the prominent Parliamentary Environmental Audit Select Committee as an expert witness for its investigation on the structure and operation of government and the challenge of climate change. It is well recognised that the problem of climate change transcends traditional policy sectors and that policy making systems need to be more joined-up and reflexive to meet this challenge. The committee were therefore interested in drawing lessons from the findings of the research Duncan conducted during an ESRC post-doctoral fellowship on policy coordination for sustainable development. Dr Russel, said “it was a real pleasure to be able to end my fellowship with an invitation to discuss my research findings with this influential group of MPs.” He added “the main message that I tried relay was that the operation of UK’s existing coordination strategy for sustainable development - which perforce should account for climate change - is so inadequate that considerable political energy needs to be invested in improving its performance.” To this end, Duncan told the Committee members that integrating climate change considerations into UK policy making needs to go well beyond the Prime Minister making occasional speeches. Sustained political leadership from the highest tiers of government is necessary to produce an environment in which departmental officials are appropriately equipped and incentivized to consider climate impacts in their daily policy making. Positive incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation |
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The International Society for Ecological Economics has awarded the Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen prize for young scientist to 
