CAST researchers work with a range of partner organisations from the private, public and third-sector. Our existing partnerships are listed below.
If your organisation is interested in working with CAST, please get in touch: info@cast.ac.uk
CAST partners
CAST has paired up with the third-sector organisation Possible who have pioneered community-level interventions to address climate change, for example inspiring communities to engage with climate action by crowdfunding solar. Building on this work, CAST and Possible will trial approaches to reduce carbon emissions at the neighbourhood level working with multiple communities in London.
Anglian Water is a water service company operating in East Anglia, England. They have partnered with CAST to encourage transformations in water use and climate-relevant behaviours (e.g. food choices, energy consumption) at household and organisation levels.
Cardiff City Council and the Cardiff and Vale local public health team have been working to develop low-carbon and healthy transport solutions for Cardiff. This includes encouraging active travel and use of public transport modes to improve air quality, reduce emissions and promote active and healthy lifestyles across Cardiff, including amongst young people and in deprived areas. They will be working with CAST researchers to co-design and evaluate interventions in line with these ambitions.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)
CAST researchers will work with GMCA and city leaders as they deliver a programme of immediate actions and develop a five-year city-region plan to achieve emission reduction from material consumption, diet, mobility, and comfort. This builds on existing work that has quantified the implications of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and evaluated low-carbon interventions across infrastructure, processes and behaviours.
The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Bill will set a net-zero emissions target for 2045. CAST researchers will work with the Behaviours and Engagement Team to support policy development in line with this ambitious goal.
The Wates Group is one of the largest privately-owned construction, development and property services companies in the UK. It will work with CAST researchers to develop and implement its strategic vision to become a leading voice in the construction industry on sustainability in the built environment.
CAST researchers will be working with the Welsh Government to co-design policies to help deliver stringent emission reduction targets, ensuring that social science insights inform climate change strategies for Wales. This work will particularly focus on the co-benefits of carbon reduction in relation to the requirements of WG’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.
Place-based Climate Action Network (P-CAN)
CAST will work closely with P-CAN, which aims to produce a replicable model that delivers climate policies on a global to local scale, facilitating and inspiring places across the UK. CAST researchers will engage with P-CAN to inform transformations especially at the city-scale.
CAST is working with the world-leading IMAGE modelling group at Utrecht University (led by Prof. Detlef van Vuuren) to develop new 1.5C climate scenario assessments. As part of CAST research theme 1, this research will focus specifically on meeting UN sustainable development goals and understanding lifestyle impacts.
Peking University – China Center for Climate Change Communication
Binbin Wang, who co-founded the China Center for Climate Change Communication in 2010, will work closely with CAST researchers to explore low-carbon transformations in the Chinese context.
Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil
Dr Valdiney Gouveia is an environmental psychologist who will be working with CAST researchers to explore low-carbon lifestyles in Brazil.
Dr Cecilia Bergstad is an environmental psychologist who will be working with CAST researchers in Theme 1 to explore low-carbon transformations in Sweden.
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
The CAST Centre will work closely with the Tyndall Centre to explore ways to rapidly transform society in line with the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions.
CAST Affiliate Members
We also have affiliate members; researchers, practitioners and members of other groups with a track record of research and engagement in climate change and social transformations and whose focus lies within the broader aims and objectives of CAST. The aim of our affiliate membership is to bring together individuals who work alongside each other to develop innovative research and discover new applications in an inspiring and collaborative environment.
Dr Charles Ogunbode
Dr Charles Ogunbode is an Assistant Professor in Applied Psychology at the University of Nottingham. His research broadly examines the roles of personal experiences, media exposure, and social norms in people’s responses to environmental problems. In his current projects, he is investigating how negative emotional responses to climate change are linked to wellbeing and pro-environmental action around the world, how young adults are psychologically adapting to climate risks in the Pacific region, and how we can draw on people’s mental models of climate change risk to promote climate action in Africa. Prior to joining the University of Nottingham, he held positions at De Montfort University and the University of Bergen.
David Powell
David Powell is Senior Engagement Advisor at Climate Outreach, where he leads the Climate Engagement Lab. He has 20 years of experience in climate engagement, communications and policy, and in the translation of research and evidence into accessible, public-facing campaigns and programmes. He helps climate communicators to understand, empathise with and engage non-activist audiences in meaningful action.
He has worked as a senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth, where he led work on greening the financial and banking system and the UK Treasury. From 2016-2020 he was Head of Environment at the think tank, the New Economics Foundation. At NEF, David developed and led its work on the just transition, in particular focusing on community worker engagement in the oil and gas sector.
David produces and hosts the psychology podcast Your Brain on Climate.
Dr Lucas Geese
Dr Lucas Geese is a research fellow at the University of East Anglia. His research focuses on climate change and decarbonisation-related political representation, particularly the relationship between citizens and politicians. He is currently a researcher on the ERC-funded project Deep Decarbonisation: The Democratic Challenge of Navigating Governance Traps, in which he seeks to understand what motivates politicians to credibly commit themselves to lead in deep and rapid decarbonisation. Previously he worked as a lecturer and researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Bamberg in Germany.
Prof Charlie Wilson
Prof Charlie Wilson is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. He is also a visiting research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. Prior to joining ECI, Charlie spent 11 years with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UK).
Charlie’s research lie at the intersection between innovation, people, and policy in the field of energy and climate change mitigation. He works at a systems level on scenarios and modelling of net-zero transformations, looking particularly at the role of lifestyle change and digitalisation as a transformative force. He also works at the micro level on innovation processes, technology adoption, and pro-environmental behaviour.
Prof. Rebecca Willis
Rebecca Willis is a Professor in Energy & Climate Governance at Lancaster Environment Centre, where she leads the Climate Citizens project. In 2020 she was an Expert Lead for Climate Assembly UK, the Citizens’ Assembly established by the UK Parliament. Rebecca is a Trustee of the New Economics Foundation and an adviser to the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund. She features on the Woman’s Hour Our Planet Power List which highlights 30 women making an impact by helping to protect our planet; and on the ENDs Report Environmental Professionals Power List. Her book, Too Hot To Handle? The democratic challenge of climate change was published by Bristol University Press in March 2020.
Previously, she was a research fellow for the IGov project at the University of Exeter, investigating energy governance. From 2015-2019 she was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of UKRI’s Energy Programme, and from 2011-15 she was a Council Member of the Natural Environment Research Council. She was Vice-Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, advising the Prime Minister and First Ministers of the devolved administrations, from 2004-2011. In 2009 Rebecca founded Green Alliance’s Climate Leadership Programme, an initiative to support Members of the UK Parliament, and earlier served as Green Alliance’s Director.
Dr John Kenny
Dr John Kenny is a Senior Research Associate at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research/School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (UEA). He specialises in the area of public opinion research, with a particular focus on environmental and climate change attitudes. In his current work on the ERC-funded project Deep Decarbonisation: The Democratic Challenge of Navigating Governance Traps, he examines the extent to which publics are willing to commit to policies and actions that would result in substantial and rapid societal decarbonisation. Prior to joining UEA, he held positions at the University of Southampton and the University of Oxford.
Dr Adam Corner
Adam is a researcher, strategist & writer specialising in public opinion on climate change. He previously held the post of Research Director at Climate Outreach and was one of the founding Co-Directors of CAST as part of this role. Adam established the Local Storytelling Exchange with the European Climate Foundation, and is now strategic adviser to the Local Storytelling Exchange team. Adam is currently Co-Director of Climate Barometer, an initiative that monitors and makes sense of what people think about climate change.
Adam has written commentary and analyses for international media (The Guardian, New Scientist), authored a wide range of reports, published widely in academic journals and lead-authored the book ‘Talking Climate: From Research to Practice in Public Engagement’.
Dr Brendan Moore
Dr Brendan Moore is a postdoctoral researcher on transformative EU climate governance at the Institute for European Studies, Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research focuses on the role of government-led transformations in rapid decarbonisation, European Union climate change policy, and the impact of Brexit on UK and EU environmental governance. He is also a climate policy associate of the Brexit & Environment network, a group of scholars providing independent research on how Brexit is affecting policy, governance and the environment.
Dr Sam Hampton
Dr Sam Hampton is a Research Fellow at the University of Bath, work interdisciplinary work focuses on energy and climate change.
His research examines the ways in which environmental impact relates to everyday life. It begins with the idea that energy and resource consumption are bound up in everyday practices such as travelling to work, cooking and eating, and achieving comfort. This perspective tells us that policies designed to reduce environmental impact require an understanding of how and why social norms and behaviours become established. For instance, the steady increase in ‘normal’ indoor temperatures over the last 50 years, the transition from bathing to showering, or the proliferation of plastics in food production and consumption.
Sam has worked on several research projects focusing on energy and transport decarbonisation, including electric vehicle charging infrastructure and smart heat pumps. He led a project called ‘Pathways to a Zero Carbon Oxfordshire’, and is working with Local Authorities to implement the changes needed to eradicate fossil fuels from the economy. Sam specialises in energy and climate governance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and has works as a low carbon advisor to business alongside his research roles.
Sam joined the University of Bath in 2021 to work on a project called ‘Accelerating Carbon Capability for an Equitable, Sustainable Society (ACCESS). Drawing on different theoretical and disciplinary traditions, this project seeks to understand what it will take for the diverse UK population to become more ‘carbon capable’. How can low carbon lifestyles be made fulfilling, desirable, affordable, and accessible to all?
Prof Nicole Koenig-Lewis
Prof Koenig-Lewis is a Professor of Marketing at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK. Her research addresses the theoretical debates, drivers and barriers surrounding sustainable behaviours relating to domestic consumption (including second-hand consumption), access-based consumption (renting of everyday consumer goods), and festival/event attendance with a specific focus on spectator engagement, value co-creation and the role of events/festivals as agents of sustainable behaviour change.
Bridging the gap between academia and the business community, Nicole is working closely with external organisations aiming to inspire truly sustainable approaches to business, which is key to the Public Value ethos of Cardiff Business School. Her current projects aim to enhance understanding of fan/spectator mobility to events, spectators’ perceptions of and engagement in events’ sustainable initiatives, communications and their effectiveness from multiple interdisciplinary angles. She was part of the Interdisciplinary research team from Cardiff Business School & School of Geography and Planning, which won the 2022 Celebrating Excellence Award in the category ‘Excellence in Environmental Sustainability’ at Cardiff University. Her work has been published in internationally recognised journals, such as Journal of Business Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Resources, Conservation & Recycling, and European Sport Management Quarterly. She is the Co-Editor of the book: Public Value: Deepening, Enriching, and Broadening the Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2019).
Dr Paul Bain
Dr Paul Bain is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Psychology at the University of Bath, with expertise in social and cross-cultural psychology. Paul is currently the University of Bath Pathway Lead for Sustainable Futures in the South West Doctoral Training Program (UK), and a Committee Member of the interdisciplinary GW4 Climate Alliance Programme (UK).
Paul’s research includes how people understand climate change and sustainability within and across cultures, and how people believe the actions taken to address these issues will change society. His research has been published in interdisciplinary journals including Nature Climate Change and Nature Sustainability.
Dr Susan Lee
Dr Susan Lee is a Research Fellow within the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) employed by Leeds University Business School. Her current research assesses consumer food purchase behaviours in response to external shocks, the usefulness of eco-labelling and the impact of diet on environmental sustainability (greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use, as well as biodiversity). She is a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Previously, Susan worked on several research programmes at the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester. She has a background in Environmental Science with research interests encompassing dietary change, sustainable food systems, urban metabolism, and the natural environment. She works across the physical and natural sciences with data scientists, nutritionists, engineers, environmental and social scientists, and the business community, to address current world issues relating to food and diet.
Dr James Graham
Dr James Graham is a Senior Research Associate with the Science, Society and Sustainability (3S) research group and CAST, based at the Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia. His research has moved from a background in green technology and policy to a thesis on mapping systems of social practice to looking at a local model for an inclusive economy, to organisational change towards zero-carbon.
His work with CAST included a review of literature on the subject of organisational change and transformation towards zero carbon in addition to case study work with a range of partner organisations to gather qualitative data on how different organisations are tackling the realities of climate destabilisation and ecological collapse. James is also a keen activist and currently working as a community organiser, participating in both local, national and global groups engaged in a struggle for a liveable future.
Dr Jo Swaffield
Dr Jo Swaffield’s current research at Newcastle University focuses on the acceptance, adoption and effectiveness of sustainable technologies. She is working on three projects that explore these areas with a focus on water and energy use in the home. This work is being conducted alongside a research team at Newcastle University Business School and with project partners, including Northumbrian Water, Northern Gas Networks, National Energy Action and Procter and Gamble.
Jo has previous research experience on household water use behaviours with a specific focus on sustainable technologies (e.g., smart shower sensors, smart water meters), alongside a broad range of other issues related to drought and water management in the UK. These include individual perceptions of water use, levels of concern and perceptions of future management options (e.g., pricing, restrictions).
Alongside her work on climate change mitigation (sustainable technology and behaviour change), Jo is interested in individual and societal adaptation to a changing climate. Specifically, the impact that extreme heat will have on everyday behaviours such as water and energy use.
Lina Khattab
Lina Khattab is a doctoral researcher at the University of York. She is interested in understanding and promoting pro-environmental behaviours to mitigate the impact of climate change. Her current research is exploring households’ water conservation across two different cultures, the UK and Egypt. As a social scientist and marketer, she acknowledges the role of context on human behaviour and advocates a holistic systems approach to behaviour change, in which structural and social aspects are accounted for. Her research was presented at international conferences of environmental psychology, social marketing, and international
water association (IWA).
Dr Steve Westlake
Dr Steve Westlake is a research fellow at Cardiff University. He was formerly a Knowledge Exchange Associate for CAST, and has worked in the Climate Change Committee secretariat.
Steve’s research explores how leading by example with high-impact pro-environmental behaviour influences the attitudes and behaviour of others, and how such leadership contributes to climate change mitigation. Steve’s PhD revealed that visible leading by example from politicians, CEOs and celebrities significantly increases the willingness of members of the public to adopt the same low-carbon behaviours (flying less, eating less meat, driving electric cars, improving home energy efficiency, increased use of public transport and active travel). Furthermore, the public’s perceptions of the leaders’ credibility, trustworthiness, competence and popularity are greatly increased when the leaders are observed leading by example. A corresponding negative effect is observed when leaders’ behaviour appears to contradict their climate message.
Underpinning Steve’s ongoing research is the idea that “action is communication”. His investigations aim to provide insights into how social influence and leadership can feed into the rapid transition to more sustainable lifestyles, by shifting social norms and contributing to social tipping points. His research also contributes to the ongoing debates about “individual action versus systems change”, highlighting how leaders’ individual actions have an effect on collectives and systems – i.e. they are not purely “individual”. He draws on theories of social influence, cultural evolution, leadership, and practice.
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Katharine Lee
Katharine Lee is a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. Her doctoral research explored adolescents’ understandings of and responses to climate change. Following this, she won an ESRC one-year postdoctoral fellowship to further expand and develop her doctoral research. This work focused on how responses to the climate crisis are presented to secondary school pupils in UK national curricula. Her research continues to focus on young people’s agency and ability to respond to climate change, both individually and collectively.
Dr Kaloyan Mitev
Dr Kaloyan Mitev is an environmental psychologist and a behavioural scientist. He currently works at the Competence Centre for Behavioural Insights, EU Policy Lab, at the Joint Research Centre, EU Commission. His work is focused in the areas of climate change, environment, misinformation, and mental health. Prior to joining the JRC, Kaloyan worked as a Research Associate at the University of Bath, UK, where he explored the effects of significant life events or ‘moments of change’, e.g., starting university, on young people’s pro-environmental behaviours together with values, attitudes, and perceptions.
Kaloyan has also worked on various consultancy projects in the area of climate change, such as collaborating with governmental bodies and local councils across the UK (e.g., The Climate Change Committee, Scottish Government) to shape net-zero policies and strategies.
Kaloyan holds a MSc in Social Science Research from Cardiff University, and a Doctorate Degree (PhD) in Environmental Psychology from the University of Bath.
Lois Player
Lois Player is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. Her PhD research explores the public acceptability of climate transport policies, and she routinely collaborates with local policymakers to help them design fair, effective and well-accepted climate policies (e.g. Bath & North East Somerset and Bristol City Council).
She completed a secondment with the UK Government’s climate advisors, the Climate Change Committee, exploring the role of people and behaviour change in the transition to Net Zero, and the importance of considering fairness in climate policymaking.
Related to this, Lois is interested in how we can best involve the public in climate policy decision-making. She has worked with CAST on various projects seeking to enable low-carbon behaviours, for example with Cornwall Council to foster sustainable travel behaviours, Thames and Anglian Water to support water saving behaviours, and the Climate Change Committee to understand how behaviour change insights can help inform climate policy.
Dr Katharine Steentjes
Dr Katharine Steentjes was CAST Co-ordinator based at Cardiff University and mainly responsible for designing and delivering project 1.4 under Theme 1, which entailed multi-wave, multi-country surveys on public perceptions of climate change with a special focus on the Centre’s four areas of interest (material consumption, diet, mobility, thermal comfort). She was also involved with delivering project 4.1.
Her general research interest concerns social normative processes surrounding climate change and identifying opportunities to accelerate social shifts towards more sustainable lifestyles. Previously, she has worked on international research projects examining public perceptions of environmental risks (such as climate change), policy strategies, energy solutions and psychological factors underlying these views. As part of the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (CIE-MAP) she examined public perceptions of low material/low carbon societal future, adopting a mixed method approach. In collaboration with colleagues from Germany, Norway and France and international stakeholders she led a cross-national survey on European perceptions of climate change (EPCC). Alongside her role at CAST, she worked on a UK Climate Resilience project (RESILRISK) that provides insights into public perceptions of climate change risks and identifies support for UK adaptation strategies. This project also tests the implications of different communication strategies on facilitating support for personal, community and national action to respond to/or prepare for the impacts of climate change.
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Dr Stuart Capstick
Dr Stuart Capstick was jointly leading the Centre’s research on Theme 3, based at Cardiff University, designing and trialling new approaches to bring about change at all levels from the household to the national level.
Stuart researched public understanding of climate change and ways to engage people with the transformations needed to achieve emissions reduction. He has led work looking at how the social sciences can contribute to more radical emissions reduction through behaviour and lifestyle change, and has been involved in approaches to reducing the carbon footprint from our research activity. His research has also considered the ways in which we can develop effective climate change communication, working with others across the natural and social sciences and civil society. As part of his research within the CAST Centre, Stuart has worked with Welsh Government, 10:10 and others to develop new approaches to tackling climate change.
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Dr Olaya Moldes Andrés
Dr Olaya Moldes Andrés is a Lecturer in Marketing and Strategy at Cardiff Business School. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Sussex, an MRes in Research Methods in Psychology, an MSc in Management and Entrepreneurship, and a BSc(Hons) in Communication and Media Studies. Her academic journey also includes a year abroad at the University of Ottawa and the University of Sussex.
After working as a marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard, she started a PhD and her academic career with a focus on improving people’s lives through behavioural change by developing an interdisciplinary research program with two aims:
- Better understand the impact of marketing and consumer-focus mindsets on the well-being of individuals.
- Reduce over-consumption patterns by developing a better understanding of how consumers attribute well-being to spending behaviours.
Her work has been published in marketing and psychology journals, including Psychology & Marketing, the British Journal of Social Psychology, the Journal of Economic Psychology, and the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, and has been mentioned in multiple news outlets, including The Conversation, The Guardian, and Wales Online.
Harriet Dudley
Harriet Dudley is a Climate Resilience Consultant at Mott MacDonald working on climate change risk assessments and adaptation reporting for organisations. In 2024 Harriet completed her PhD at the University of East Anglia. Her research was about the influence of the UK Climate Change Committee’s mitigation and adaptation recommendations on government climate policy between 2009 and 2020. Harriet worked on Project 2.1 and her doctoral research contributed to Theme 2 on learning how and why transformations occur. Harriet’s work with CAST included publishing a policy briefing about the advice that climate change advisory bodies provide to policymakers.
Harriet can be contacted on LinkedIn.
Prof Hilary Graham
Prof Hilary Graham is based in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. She has contributed to CAST research across themes, helping to ensure that research is communicated in ways that enable people, organisations and governments to take action on climate change.
Hilary is a social scientist with a track record of policy-facing research on health inequalities and climate change. Her research also explores people’s generational ties, particularly between young people, parents and grandparents, and how harnessing these commitments to future generations is central to driving climate action.
Hilary is part of the NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit which focuses on delivering timely, relevant and robust evidence to support public health policies. Her projects are investigating people’s concerns about climate change and their priorities for policies to address it.
Sarah Toy BEng, MSs, CEng, MICE
Current role: Freelance consultant and CAST affiliate, Doctoral student in the Department of Psychology, University of Bath supervised by Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh.
Sarah Toy is a practitioner-researcher conducting doctoral research focused on the future of low car, urban mobility. Her doctoral research question is the idea of reducing urban car dependency and asks if it could be made desirable and possible to not own a car. She is complementing practice-led insights with qualitative research and secondary data analysis of Carbon Disclosure Project Cities data. Her research is informed by a range of consultancy roles including recent work Wales Net Zero 2035 Commission and development of a 2030 Net Zero Carbon vision with Bath and Northeast Somerset.
Her interest in sustainable transport has been a consistent theme during her 30+ years working as a chartered civil engineer on global sustainable infrastructure and behaviour change projects. More recently as Bristol’s first ever Chief Resilience Officer, whilst leading the co-creation of a 50-year vision, she became fascinated with the role that city stakeholders can play in mitigating carbon emissions and adapting to the urban challenges of climate change. This led to her doctoral investigations into the policy levers which can be used to increase active and shared mobility and reduce car dependency in cities.
Follow Sarah on LinkedIn and find out more about how you can work with her on her website.
Annayah Prosser
Annayah Prosser is a lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Marketing, Business and Society at the University of Bath’s School of Management. Her primary research interest concerns how individuals and groups respond to societal crises, such as the climate and ecological emergency. She explores how our group identities can both help and hinder societal transformations and why some groups act in more prosocial and pro-environmental ways than others. She also explores how morality and ethics might influence group interactions and societal transformations. She works in an interdisciplinary, applied and mixed methods manner, utilising perspectives from the environmental social sciences (including psychology, sociology, geography, marketing and politics) broadly. She also has a wide interest in methodological innovations and open science, particularly with regard to advances in qualitative methods, and is currently the deputy director of the Centre for Qualitative Research at Bath.
Judith van de Wetering
Judith van de Wetering is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She is interested in how adolescents (12-24-year-olds) are affected by and can contribute to societal challenges, including climate change. Rapid hormonal, cognitive, and social developments make the adolescent period an opportune time for societal contribution and intervention. Within the ERC-funded GREENTEENS project, Judith tests how interventions can harness adolescents’ developmentally salient motives (e.g., autonomy, peer status) to promote their sustainable engagement. She is interested in using participatory approaches, involving adolescents to inspire, co-design, and co-evaluate her research. It is her goal to contribute to FAIR and impactful research that supports young people find their place in society.
Dr Elizabeth Marks
Dr Liz Marks is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Bath, a Clinical Psychologist and deputy director of the Bath Centre for Mindfulness and Community. Her research focuses on the psychological burdens and mental health implications of climate change and environmental degradation, particularly in vulnerable groups such as children and young people. She is interested in understanding the role that eco-emotions and eco-distress may have in shaping people’s responses to these crises, and how distress may be associated with perceived failure of action by governments and other powerful bodies. She also explores innovative ways of developing resilience and psychological adaptation to climate change and associated distress using a range of approaches with individuals, groups and communities.
Alice Mason
Alice’s work aims to understand the cognitive processes underlying judgement and decision-making, in particular learning and memory. Her research uses behavioural experiments with statistical and computational modelling to ask questions about how people understand risks and make choices. She studies these processes in a range of contexts including economic decisions, food choice, decisions involving mental and physical effort and climate action.
Dr Nick Nash
Dr Nick Nash is based in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath and previously worked as a Co-invesigator on Theme 1 (What could low-carbon transformed futures look like?) and Project 1.2 (Comparing visions of change across countries).
Nick’s research primarily involves the study of perceptions of environmental and climate-relevant issues grounded in particular cultural and spatial contexts. In studying situated perceptions and emphasising the importance of local context and experience, he works primarily with qualitative psychological methods to generate detailed accounts of how individuals make sense of environmental issues as part of their everyday lives and worlds. He has extensive experience in conducting cross-cultural qualitative fieldwork and looks forward to drawing upon this experience to explore how citizens imagine low-carbon futures in diverse cultural settings.
For more information, including Nick’s research outputs, view his University of Bath profile.
Dr Emily Wolstenholme
Dr Emily Wolstenholme was a Research Associate at Cardiff University working on Theme 1, analysing the multi-wave, multi-country CAST survey. Her work focused on investigating public perceptions of low-carbon behaviours related to travel, diet, heating and material consumption, investigating change in perceptions over time and cross-cultural differences.
Emily’s wider research interests concern understanding behaviours related to climate change, implementing behaviour change interventions and evaluating public policy. Her work has involved evaluating the effectiveness of the single-use plastic bag charge on reducing single-use carrier bags in England and Wales, investigating motivations for meat consumption and vegetarianism across different cultures, and testing the effectiveness of a randomised messaging intervention on reducing meat consumption, which formed the basis of her PhD research. She is a mixed-methods researcher and has worked on other policy areas within the civil service, including public health and international trade.
Dr Louise King
Dr Louise King is an environmental social scientist with an interdisciplinary background. Her research explores how social understandings impact on public engagement with complex socio-technical and environmental issues. Her work at CAST focused on understanding public perceptions and experiences of cooling demand and cooling technologies within the Flex-Cool-Store project. Methodologically, she is a qualitative researcher using visual, deliberative and place-based methods to engage publics with these issues and their implications for everyday life.
Her work has a strong interdisciplinary focus and previous research has centred on the implications of social practices for energy consumption and building energy performance, energy visualisation, green infrastructure and brownfield land development. Louise is currently working on an AHRC-funded Green Transition Ecosystem project, Transforming Housing and Homes for Future Generations which provides insights into transforming existing housing by working with communities to co-design Beyond Net Zero resilient homes.
For more information, including Louise’s research outputs, view her University of Bath profile.
Dr Tim Braunholtz-Speight
Dr Tim Braunholtz-Speight is based at the University of Manchester and contributed to CAST Theme 3.4 on city-level change.
Tim is a social scientist who has in recent years studied the decentralised management of resources, working on projects on community and local energy, community land ownership, and alternative finance. Prior to the University of Manchester, he worked at the University of Leeds, the University of the Highlands and Islands, the Overseas Development Institute and Leeds Beckett University.
For more information, including Tim’s research outputs, view his University of Manchester profile.
Emma James
Emma James joined Climate Outreach in December 2021 as a Researcher following her completion of an MSc International Environmental Studies degree at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. As a Researcher, Emma focuses on helping to design and disseminate quantitative and qualitative social science research for various climate communicators including Local Authorities and Grassroots Campaigners. Most recently, Emma project-managed, alongside leading, the research for the refresh of the Britain Talks Climate toolkit for 2024. Britain Talks Climate is a resource to help us engage with the British public on climate change.
At CAST, Emma helps with the CAST Impact Fund by tracking project outputs and documenting their impacts.
Follow Emma on LinkedIn.
Kai Greenlees
Kai Greenlees is a PhD student at the University of Exeter in the Department of Geography. Kai’s broad research interests seek to understand the intersection of individual and systems change to enable rapid climate mitigation and a just transition. Their PhD research, co-supervised by Professor Tim Lenton and Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh, with funding from the Southwest Doctoral Training Partnership, explores this dynamic through the framework of positive tipping points for decarbonising domestic heating in the UK.
As an environmental social scientist, Kai seeks to integrate insights of social psychology and systems science to explore if and how integrating behavioural insights with social change theories of tipping points can be leveraged to support rapid and equitable decarbonisation of one of the UK’s most challenging sectors. Kai previously worked as a policy analyst at the Carbon Trust and received a Watson Fellowship to research climate action.
Alfie Gaffney
Alfie Gaffney is a Critical Decade for Climate Change Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (UEA), and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. His research examines the role of local politicians in delivering net zero, with a particular focus on the role of agency within local authority climate action planning processes in adverse and favourable contexts. Previously, he worked as a policy officer at both the Scottish Government and Royal Society of Edinburgh, and holds an MSc in environmental politics from the University of Edinburgh.
Jesse Wise
Jesse Wise is a Doctoral Researcher specializing in sustainable mobility and organisational behaviour change in the Department of Psychology, University of Bath. Supervised by Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh and Dr Sam Hampton, her research explores how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can become pivotal agents in the shift toward low-carbon transportation. By examining the adoption of Travel Demand Management (TDM) strategies and workplace travel plans, her work highlights the role SMEs play in reducing transport emissions—a significant contributor to the UK’s carbon footprint.
Jesse’s research is distinguished by a comprehensive approach that combines behaviour change theory, choice environments, policy application, and the study of social tipping points to influence collective mobility habits. This includes designing and evaluating behaviour change interventions, using the PATH approach and mixed methods. Jesse’s recent placement with Pledgeball, where they assessed the impact of behavioural interventions aimed at football clubs and their fans, has further honed her expertise in evaluating real-world climate action initiatives.
Beyond academia, Jesse actively engages with a range of stakeholders, aiming to translate research findings into actionable strategies that empower organizations and support policymakers in crafting impactful and effective pro-environmental interventions.
Find out more about Jesse’ work.
Dr Duncan Maguire
Dr Duncan Maguire is a lecturer in organisational behaviour and sustainability at Norwich Business School. He is looking into environmental sustainability outcomes in organisations. The focus of this research is primarily focused on people and how they can be agents of change within the large-scale transitions required.
He is particularly interested in the worldviews and cultures that will be embedded within this change, understanding that the simple changing of some behaviours will not reach the, inter alia, net-zero goals that organisations are aiming for.
He also has an ILM level 7 executive coaching diploma and hopes to be able to combine these to proactively create transformative change within organisations.