Faced with ever-growing climate-related financial risks, the role of central banks in climate governance has intensified debates surrounding central bank independence (CBI).

Informed by elite interviews with UK monetary policy experts and a discourse analysis of Bank of England reports, this article reveals the internal views on re-politicisation of the Bank and CBI catalysed by the mandate to ‘facilitate the transition to net zero’.

We find different interpretations of CBI that are shaped by perceptions of the Bank’s existing political status, with some claiming that the Bank is intrinsically apolitical and immune to re-politicisation, and others viewing CBI as fragile or a strategically-deployed discourse. 

Across three distinct views of politics, and by extensions CBI, we identify dual dynamics of de-politicisation and re-politicisation that serve to legitimate and de-politicise prior mission creep whilst simultaneously licencing politicising debates on the bank’s institutional evolution.

We demonstrate that the Bank of England is an indispensable case study in the green central banking literature for understanding the political economy of CBI within the context of climate change.

Luke Yates' new book, , investigates the ‘sharing economy’, powered by companies like Airbnb, Uber and Deliveroo. 

This new model promised to revolutionise the way we work and live. But what changes have come about, and why?

The book shows how platform capitalism is not only shaped by business decisions, but is a result of struggles involving social movements, consumer politics and state interventions. It focuses in particular on the controversial tactics used by platform giants to avoid regulation.

Drawing on cutting-edge research and analysis, the book provides a critical overview of the struggles around platforms, examines platform power, and reflects on the different possible futures of the platform economy. You can find the book on the .

Platform Politics is published by Bristol University Press.

In this forum, I seek to demonstrate how the growing confluence of climate change and inflation offers a fruitful research agenda for environmental politics scholars. It develops two independent, yet interrelated, concepts first proposed by Schnabel: first, fossilflation, the legacy cost of the dependency on fossil energy sources, which has not been reduced forcefully enough over the past decades, and second, climateflation, the growing impact of natural disasters and severe weather events on economic activity and prices. 

With the subject of inflation often considered to be a contextual or descriptive feature of environmental issues, the economic implications of climate change have come to challenge the conventional understanding of the inflationary phenomenon. This article seeks to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue between scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds on the subject of climate change–induced inflation and the questions it presents for notions of “green” central banking. 

You can read the full article . 

As a teenager in post-USSR Ukraine, I vividly remember visiting secondhand clothes shops. For the elderly, the biggest obstacle to accepting secondhand clothes wasn’t just the lingering smell of naphthalene – a potent chemical with a strong mothball odour used for sanitation which is hard to remove even by washing or dry cleaning. 

Assumptions about the previous owner’s class — like the bourgeoisie, the so-called enemy of the working class in Soviet propaganda — and their skin colour were barriers too. But for me, these were exactly the reasons I adored this form of shopping. Through secondhand clothes, my friends and I consumed western culture. 

Yet, while proximity to western bodies felt like a blessing to my generation, it’s not universally desirable. Certain types of pre-worn clothing, like lingerie, for example, are rarely found in charity shops. Such items are perceived as as they are associated with contamination and lack of hygiene due to their close contact with intimate areas of the body. 

For customers willing to buy and wear Victorian-era underwear slips, this perceived risk is much lower as the cultural provenance outweighs any association with dirt. Washing such historic items is also not recommended as it could ruin the delicate silk or batiste textile, while the traces of someone else’s body such as marks, frays, creases, wrinkles and folds on clothes are considered marks of authenticity. 

Although both pre-loved modern and vintage lingerie have been worn, perceptions of their cleanliness differs radically. 

The stigma associated with dirt hinders the way people reuse secondhand garments or choose recycled fabrics that have been woven into something new. This limits the potential to transform the , fashion industry into a more sustainable one. 

Recycling is not yet happening on an industrial scale. Only 1% of used , and Europe’s only recycling mill, designed to convert discarded clothes into new textiles through eco-friendly chemical recycling, closed in February 2024 – just two years after opening. 

Reuse – such as resale, rental, repair and remaking – could help prevent , reduce , lower and increase to tackle fashion waste. But despite the , it still remains a niche practice because it relies on people wearing clothes that others have previously worn. 

Although worn clothes are often called “pre-loved,” the visibility of a former “lover” should be minimal for them to re-enter the new cycle of consumption. 

Behind the seams

Cleanliness is a cultural concept that has evolved over time. Before, laundering undergarments served as a substitute for bathing, from germs and disease. Today, laundry practices focus on caring for clothes and protecting them . Washing at low temperatures and on gentle cycles isn’t about killing germs but preserving freshness. Freshness has become the primary marker of cleanliness, as shown by the wide range of modern detergents and after-laundry products that promise extra freshness. 

Cultural perceptions of cleanliness significantly influence how secondhand clothes are viewed and valued. Today, that’s driven by the need to remove traces of the previous owner. That involves laundering, which can release harmful microplastics – washing polyester contributes more than half a million tonnes of – or energy-intensive dry cleaning with toxic solvents like perchloroethylene, a process that’s commonly used by rental clothing businesses. 

My preliminary research on upcycling shows that clothes, even when physically clean, are often seen as dirty if they’ve been previously worn. Stains like blood on a dress, sweat marks on an XXXL men’s shirt, or wine spills on branded jeans are perceived and even smell differently, despite cleaning. These concerns go beyond hygiene, involving assumptions and moral judgements about the bodies of previous owners, including their class, body shape, gender and race. 

In many cultures, there’s a need for symbolic cleansing from the body of that is often overlooked. 

Cultural biases extend to fibres, with the industry favouring virgin wool obtained from sheep shearing over recycled wool. That’s a reflection of historical attitudes towards who collected discarded wasted and smelly textiles. 

The recycling process of shredding discarded wool and weaving it into new fibres was invented in 19th-century Yorkshire. The resulting reclaimed product, known as “shoddy wool”, was considered lower quality not only due to the process, which significantly downgraded the quality of textile but also because it used worn, dirty rags collected by poor, often immigrant, women and children. The growth of wool recycling has been hindered, not by technology but by negative attitudes towards the use of recycled rather than virgin and , fibres. 

Cleanliness of secondhand clothes is symbolically charged. By distinguishing between the needs for and expectations of physical and symbolic purity in clothing and discussing them more openly, attitudes and cultural norms may shift. This could help move reuse business models from niche to mainstream and support further sustainable development.

, PhD Candidate, Cultural Sociology, University of Manchester

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. .

The English Premier League (EPL) has drawn the attention of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds in recent years, yet its underlying economic model and the politics underpinning it remain underexplored within the literature. 

To address this gap, we situate the EPL within Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) to examine the unstable financial foundations upon which the sporting enterprise is built.

As such, we contend that the EPL can be understood as a reflection of the broader pathology of British politics since the 1980s. By placing the EPL within the Minsky cycle, we demonstrate how the actors that make up the league skirt the boundaries of hedge, speculative and Ponzi financiers, as the over-leveraging of clubs becomes ever more contingent upon debt-based instruments and loss-leading broadcasters to preserve the league’s economic status.

Contrary to the tendency to abstract the role of fans from the economics of football, we conclude that what prevents the league from reaching its own collapse in asset values—known as a Minsky moment—is them providing the ‘effective demand’ for football.

You can read the full article .

It is accepted that electricity networks need to grow in scale and scope to facilitate decarbonisation. It is also accepted that infrastructural change is incremental. 

Yet, the incremental delivery of network capacity and the relevance of this for energy transitions have received little attention. Instead, broader, evolutionary accounts of change predominate.

Opportunities therefore remain to conceptualise and study the incrementality of network growth and to consider the implications of this for energy transitions. I conceptualise investment in network capacity as an outcome of infrastructural refraction: as emergent of varied and unevenly distributed histories and geographies of electrification beaming through and being refracted by the prism of socio-technical infrastructure in ways that condition the sited reconstitution of network capacities. 

Examining practices of translation, enacted by network operators, provides a method of revealing the constitutive details and dynamic of infrastructural refraction.

A case study focused on the technological framing of the delivery of a 33 kV substation in Central 91ֱ�� is explored. The analysis stresses the importance of examining the contingencies of investment in capacity. This paper contributes a concept-method package that helps reveal such details and by proxy the polycentric politics of electrification, investment in electricity network capacity, and energy transitions.

You can read the full article .

How is British politics changing in ways that affect the pursuit of ambitious climate action? 

In this report, based on a workshop of academic experts and key NGO participants, we present the key implications of recent changes, notably a rising backlash against climate policy, and the shift in approach by the Conservative government in response to it. 

It raises various new dilemmas for the main two political parties themselves, which those pushing for ambitious climate action need to understand. 

To read the report, see . 

In his new book, Alan Warde explores how eating habits have changed in recent decades and asks what it means for us to eat well.

He traces the changing culinary landscape of food consumption in Britain since the 1950s, drawing connections between global trends in mass food production and the changing practices of what and how we eat.

From a move towards more informal ways of eating, and an increase in eating out, Warde demonstrates how social change shapes what we put on our plates, sharpening both the pleasures and the anxieties around food.

Drawing on research undertaken over 40 years, the book offers fresh insights into such practices as everyday meals, shopping, cooking and dining out and how these are shaped by demographic, social and cultural processes. The book provides a comprehensive and engaging analysis of eating in Britain today and of the many controversies about how this has changed.

is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Professorial Fellow in the at the University of Manchester. He specialises in cultural sociology, consumption and food. In 2019 he received the BSA Distinguished Service to British Sociology Award.

In 2017, the UK’s Industrial Strategy was thought to have marked an unconventional moment in British politics, as the state began to explicitly ‘pick the winners’ necessary to both grow and decarbonise the economy. 

This article demonstrates that a more conventional view of this moment can be found in the pages of the Green Finance Strategies where, contrary to the assumption that a green transformation requires developing domestic capacity in emergent technologies, the UK has instead chosen to be the financier of them. 

It draws on a novel dataset to find another instance of ‘Treasury Control’, in which large scale investments in low carbon sectors was eschewed to instead 'green' the financial expertise located in the City of London, thereby making green finance British industrial policy. 

Instead of any industrial transformation of the UK political economy, the pursuit of green finance belies the fact that any such transition, and by extension Net Zero, is shaped by the City-Bank-Treasury nexus' desire to preserve the prevailing economic model with as few adjustments as possible.

You can read the full article .

The goal of the workshop is to build conversations among researchers about the political economy of energy transitions, focused on the question of their disruptive qualities. 

This is part of a project funded internally at 91ֱ�� with the same title. One of the goals of the project is to build new networks of researchers and potential future research activity on this theme. You will see a longer description of our project below. 

The workshop is a key part of pursuing that goal. We envisage it therefore as a creative site of interaction to generate new ideas rather than simply to present existing work. We have already confirmed participation from a number of leading scholars in the field and are now seeking expressions of interest from others. 

We have some funds to support participation in the workshop. We will prioritise the use of those funds partly in relation to the strength of the connection to our project theme, but also to promote the participation of scholars from the global South, early career researchers, and from groups traditionally marginalised within universities. 

Given the logic of the workshop design, we do not seek abstracts for papers. Instead, please can you send us a short (max. one-page) statement of interest in the workshop, responding to these questions: 

1. How does your current work speak to the overall themes of the workshop and are there any specific aspects it speaks particularly to? 
2. What do you think the most important and interesting aspects of the political economy of green energy transitions are to focus on in the next few years? 

Please send these along with a CV to matthew.paterson@manchester.ac.uk, copying sandra.barragan@manchester.ac.uk, by Wednesday, 12 June 2024. We will let people know about participation by the end of June.

Aims and objectives

The project has two principal aims

First, to examine the distributive dynamics of the Green energy transitions (GETs) that are central to the global response to climate change. It focuses in particular on the disruptive qualities of GETs as well as the current geopolitical contexts in which they are unfolding. It pursues these dynamics in four ways:

• Disruptions produced by shifts away from fossil fuels – to fossil fuel producing regions, industries dependent on fossil fuels extraction, production and export as a key feature of the domestic economy. 
• Disruptions produced by shifts to renewable energy and electrification – critical minerals, geopolitical shifts, trade patterns, to meet the demands for zero carbon technology. 
• Disruptions produced by ongoing global crises to these supply chains and thus to the dynamics of clean energy transitions – COVID (lockdowns and recovery), and Ukraine (natural gas inflation and supply disruption, consequent return of inflation) on the supply of clean technologies. 
• Disruptions produced by the shift to industrial strategy as part of the pursuit of GETs – trade conflicts, geopolitical rivalries over resource access, notably. 

Second, to develop a global network of researchers working on these as the basis for a much larger examination of the politics and political economy of GETs. The research carried out in the project will provide the groundwork for a major application involving scholars from multiple countries, notably in both global North and South, to investigate in much greater detail the dynamics shaping the distributional dynamics of GETs. A significant area of activity within the project will be building this research network. Existing team members already have considerable links from previous projects but this will be pursued systematically to generate external grant applications.

Context and rationale

GETs involve shifting the global economy away from fossil fuels to renewable energy systems, reducing energy demand in high consumption areas and expanding energy access to those currently excluded. All of these processes are central to the global response to climate change and the pursuit of decarbonisation/Net Zero. They can be highly variable in form, given choices of technology, the social organisation of energy resources, and the distribution of benefits and costs of the transition. While most research into GETs has been focused on socio-technical innovation, the IPCC 6th Assessment Report (2021) confirmed that a key knowledge gap in accelerating transformative energy transitions concerns the politics of such transitions. Key political barriers include the power of incumbent actors, policy and institutional legacies, ideological preferences and imaginaries, and the relationships of governments with social movements. And where significant transformations have occurred (e.g. coal phaseouts in various countries), this is largely because they have aligned with states’ political-economic strategies. At the heart of such transitions are questions of ‘who gets what, when and how’, as they have inevitably disruptive distributive effects, potentially generating conflicts, with profound distributive effects. As the global economy edges closer to the Net Zero objectives by 2050, how the global disruptions caused by GETs are managed by actors at various scales will determine whether it is a ‘just’ or indeed ‘unjust’ transition. 

There is some research on the politics of such transitions (Scoones et al 2015; Breetz et al 2018, Hochstetler 2020), particularly on industry resistance to climate policy (Newell & Paterson 1998). However, such research is fragmented in various ways: between work on the global South (Behuria 2020; Millington & Scheba 2020; Lavers 2023) and global North (Lockwood et al 2019; Tobin 2017); between work focused on different specific sectors, and across different theoretical traditions. Strategies for pursuing GETs are central to addressing the climate emergency and shaping the future of the global economy. 

However, the last decade has seen a number of shifts that increase the importance of this sort of research. First, the increased ambition of climate action, shifting from incremental cuts in emissions to transformational approaches to ‘Net Zero’, and eliminating fossil fuels from the global economy, has dramatically raised the stakes in understanding the drivers – mostly political-economic – of these transformations both in terms of the elimination of fossil fuels and the aggressive promotion of renewable energy and electrification (Paterson 2020). Second, the shift in policy approaches by major economies, from market-led climate strategies towards industrial strategy, has considerable potential for pursuing GETs but raises novel political questions about the coalitions that support these policies, the just transition dynamics, and the conflicts with governance norms especially in the trade system. Third, the crises starting in 2020 with the onset of COVID-19, have given considerable impetus to focusing on energy security in ways that interact with the pursuit of GETs in ways that we don’t fully understand. These three shifts make it even more imperative to focus on the disruptive politics of GETs in terms of the global production, distribution, and consumption process that they are in the process of transforming. 

The project’s work is grounded in political economy approaches (Paterson & X-Laberge 2018) that focus on the centrality of economic processes (production, distribution, finance, consumption) and their key social dynamics (ownership structures, power relations, technological innovation; social inequalities, global integration and restructuring, formal/informal economy dynamics, socioenvironmental degradation) in political and policymaking processes. These approaches provide overarching frameworks for understanding how the power relations and inequalities produced within the economy are crucial to understanding the possibility of and dynamics of GETs. It also draws our attention to the complexity and heterogeneity of these transitions. There are significant variations in ownership of energy resources and power relations across different provisioning systems in which energy is central (housing, industry, food, transport, electricity), as well as great variation globally regarding these relations. Transforming energy systems also entails multiple sites and forms of intervention from mining and extraction through to final energy use. They have shaped and will continue to shape the patterns of how those transitions are being pursued, the extent of ambition in transitioning away from fossil fuels, and who wins and who loses from energy transitions. The global interconnectedness of energy markets, supply chains and pathways to decarbonisation requires a focus on countries in multiple regions, North and South, including how policy ideas travel globally and inform strategies at various levels of government. 

Much is already known regarding the way that the transition from fossil fuels as key to the response to climate change generates various forms of economic disruption. Some of this knowledge demonstrates that supply chains are important components of this disruption. We have some knowledge about aspects of the politics of this – the socio-ecological conflicts and environmental justice issues at sites of extraction for critical minerals for example. But there are various under-explored aspects of the political conflicts involved in these supply chain disruptions that this focus seeks to concentrate on. Attention to these supply chain issues has been heightened by the crises unfolding since the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, which have disrupted supply chains across the globe in various ways, with important lessons to learn for the pursuit of net zero energy transitions. The focus of the research accordingly concerns the (un)just implications of the GET across the world following the disruptive impact of COVID-19 and inflation. As these crises have only hasted the need to achieve to ensure energy security and mitigate against future supply chain disruption through low carbon technologies. Recent and present crises have consequently made Net Zero a political and economy imperative as much as a climate objective, in turn raising questions over the disruptive impacts. The project is therefore designed to integrate analyses across the global North and global South, with analytical attention to similarities, differences, and the interconnectedness of such transitions across these regions. 

Team and Project Management

The core project consists of members of the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), Politics Department, and the Global Development Institute (GDI) to draw on the interdisciplinary expertise of members of the institutes. The overall project director is Matthew Paterson (SCI/Politics), and the other core team members will be Sam Hickey, Pritish Behuria, Silke Trommer, and James Jackson. The project employs Sandra Barragán-Contreras as a postdoctoral research associate who is carrying out primary research within the project as well as help organise the online and in-person workshops.

In this article from the Policy@91ֱ�� publication ‘On Resilience’, and explore the resilience of critical metals, and evaluate the Critical Minerals Strategy.

• The increasing demand for certain metals means that some countries find their natural resources in increasingly high demand compared to others. The scramble for new critical metal supplies, and the dispersion of critical metal resources in particular geographies, raise geopolitical conflicts.
• As climate targets become more ambitious, more minerals and metals will be needed for a low-carbon future. This increasing demand will be met by exploration and extraction from new metal sources, but it is important to consider that the extraction of metals is often a very energy-intensive process. The traditional extraction process has the potential to reduce the benefits of low-carbon technologies in terms of reducing carbon emissions. 
• The implementation of solutions is only possible through the collaboration and commitment of system actors to a circular economy of technology metals.

The pathway to net zero will put the mining and metals sector to the test. Many key ‘clean’ technologies – including batteries, fuel cells, electrolysers, and solar photovoltaics – rely on ‘critical’ metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, and the ‘rare earth’ elements. The ‘criticality’ of these metals stems from their economic importance, the lack of alternative materials, and the risk of their supply chains being disrupted. 

As they become central to decarbonisation, the future looks more ‘metal intensive’ than ever, with various challenges arising for policymakers. Given the importance of such critical metals, the UK government released the Critical Minerals Strategy (CMS) earlier this year. The strategy sets out the plan for improving the resilience of the critical metal supply chain, underpinned by three main goals: 

• Accelerate the growth of the UK’s domestic capabilities;
• Collaborate with international partners; 
• Enhance international markets to make them more responsive, transparent, and responsible.  

We unpack three challenges to these goals, some of which are acknowledged in the strategy, and some are not: geopolitical frictions, scarcity, and value conflicts.

The Government’s (2022) calls for more attention to community-based action to meet ambitious targets. Similarly, the recently-published report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, ‘’ (October 2023) makes a strong commitment to putting local communities in the driver’s seat of the levelling up agenda. 

Why is it, then, that the former pays nothing more than lip service to equity and fairness in how net zero can be rolled out across the UK and nowhere in the latter is there any mention of the urgent need to decarbonise the economy? What opportunities are being missed and what barriers are being created by this classic case of siloed thinking by policy makers?

The problem seems to lie in a lack of research on how to bring these two urgent agendas together, as well as in an overreliance on outdated ideas about what is needed to drive effective responses to the most pressing challenges of our generation. At the at the University of Manchester, we have drawn on decades of social science research to develop a Joined-up Sustainability Transformations (JUST) approach that we argue should be adopted by the next government. 

JUST entails three core ideas that together enable a shift toward principles that respond to complex social and political conditions that currently block progress towards the scale of change needed to tackle the interlocking crises of climate, care, cost of living, and more.

First, as the acronym implies, JUST rests on the belief that these crises cannot be addressed adequately unless justice is placed at the centre of research, policy making and programme implementation. An important step in that direction is improving understanding of the connections between social inequalities and environmental unsustainability, which requires the analysis of power relations and how axes of difference (such as class, gender and race) create structural obstacles to the pursuit of net zero.

Second, we argue for rather than transition. While there is no doubt that a transition away from fossil fuels is necessary, this concept sets parameters that are too narrow for the complex challenge at hand. In the context of climate change, transformation refers to “”.&�Բ�����;

Our approach focused on the relations between social inequalities and sustainability enables a more comprehensive picture of these transformational processes that often remain constrained by relatively narrow economic, technological, or behavioural approaches. 

According to a report by the there is an urgent need to translate insights from the wealth of technical and behavioural research, which has been dominant for long enough, into win-win pathways that respond more effectively and sensitively to social and political barriers to meeting the UK’s net zero agenda. JUST’s approach is designed to achieve these outcomes.

Third, JUST moves our attention away from nation-wide, top-down policies to , co-produced strategies for transformational change. This both addresses inequalities and marginalisation where they are lived and experienced, but also goes beyond the focus on ‘behaviour change’ by mobilising the energy of communities that are often already engaged in myriad initiatives to address inequalities and climate action simultaneously. 

This activity is always located in particular places and the challenges they face, ‘joined-up’ research and action needs to start with the potential that exists at this community level. This entails a combination of co-productive research with communities about the lived experience of daily life, with the development and use of comprehensive datasets which enable understanding at a granular level, down to the level of a terraced street, of who that lived experience shapes action and possibilities for action on sustainability.

Rather than ‘building back greener’, as called for by the Net Zero Strategy, the JUST approach would not be limited to one colour alone. Green is arguably too narrow and exclusive for inspiring popular support. What is needed instead is to set out a new social contract, with real prospects of better quality of life which is not only about jobs and income, but also about relationships, representation, leisure and care. 

Various iterations of a for the UK provide good examples of the potential for this kind of holistic approach to transformative policy making. However, we recommend embedding a stronger element of democratic participation so that initiatives are co-designed and co-produced to respond to the needs of local communities, working with local people to deliver JUST in ways that support and empower marginalised populations in ‘left-behind’ areas to achieve a more equitable and sustainable low-carbon future.

Politicians are keenly aware of the potential for backlash against net zero strategies such as ULEZ and LTNs. The UK has seen a significant rise in such ‘’ since around 2021. This resistance is largely political and cultural in nature, generated out of mistrust in politicians, fears that green transitions hit the poor hardest, and attachments to established practices and objects like petrol cars. This means that the backlash is unlikely to be overcome by more technological innovation or stronger scientific evidence. 

Our JUST approach has potential to counteract negative assumptions and fears that reduce public support for climate policy, by overcoming mistrust through participative strategies, targeting policy action to reduce not intensify inequalities, and to generate spaces for imagining and valuing new ways of living.
 

• Read the full article .
   

*Photo by on .

Dr Helen Holmes, current Inclusive and Prosperous Challenge Lead for and Senior Lecturer in Sociology, has been newly appointed as Deputy Director for Sustainable Futures. 

Helen will start in post from the New Year and we are very excited for all that she will bring to the team. 

Dr Holmes is an interdisciplinary social scientist with expertise in the sociology of consumption, sustainability, materiality and diverse forms of economy, particularly circular economy.

Animal agriculture is responsible for considerable environmental burden, and a key contributor to climate change. Meat alternatives are increasingly understood as potential solutions to decreasing this burden by enabling a shift away from conventional models of production and consumption of animal-derived foods. 

This paper explores the progress, drivers, and barriers of change by examining the development and diffusion of four key technologies used to produce “alternative protein” products.

Recent developments are shown to be consistent with an emerging sustainability transition, particularly the increased engagement with alternative proteins by large food corporates. However, political, regulatory, and cultural barriers remain, and are more pronounced for some alternative protein technologies than others, affecting prospects for the progression of a transformational “protein transition.”

A widespread sense of the unsustainability of the food system has taken hold in recent years, leading to calls for fundamental change. The role of animal agriculture is central to many of these debates, leading to interest in the possibility of a “protein transition,” whereby the production and consumption of animal-derived foods is replaced with plant-based substitutes or “alternative proteins.” Despite the potential sustainability implications of this transition, the developmental trajectories and transformative potential of the associated technologies remain underexplored.

This article sheds light on these dynamics by addressing two questions: 1) how have alternative protein innovations developed over the past three decades, and 2) what explains their more recent acceleration? To answer these questions, the article makes an empirical analysis of four alternative protein innovations, and the partial destabilization of the animal agriculture system between 1990 and 2021, guided by the multi-level perspective. 

The analysis highlights an intensification in corporate engagement with alternative protein development and diffusion. This intensification is judged to be consistent with the beginnings of a wider corporate reorientation, occurring alongside a rise in pressures on the animal agriculture system, notably an increasing scientific consensus and societal awareness of the links between climate change and meat-intensive diets.

The paper demonstrates how differences in technological maturity across the niche innovations have resulted in potentially transformative pressures, which are consistent with an emerging sustainability transition, manifesting differently in terms of the extent of diffusion of the alternative protein niches.

You can read the full article .

A new postgraduate course addressing the global environmental crisis and the challenges of building sustainable societies has been launched by The University of Manchester.

According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), profound social change is urgently needed to help mitigate the climate crisis and meet other sustainability goals.

The new MA Social Change, Environment and Sustainability course responds to these needs by equipping a generation of graduates and researchers with the skills, knowledge and confidence to lead the transformational processes required. It explores the dynamic relations between social, cultural, socio-economic and socio-technical change and how this impacts the climate and ecological crisis.

Students will come away with knowledge of key environmental issues from a social scientific perspective, such as such as biodiversity and the global food system, consumption and the climate crisis and debates around sustainability and economic growth.

The programme is one of only a few in the country that specifically addresses issues of environment and sustainability from the perspective of sociology and social change. This will give students the training and skills to pursue a career in fields such as environmental and sustainability consultancy, communications, corporate social responsibility, government and policy, and the third sector, such as think tanks, charities and NGOs.

The course is led by , based at the University’s Sustainable Consumption Institute and Sociology Department, and offers valuable perspectives on how social innovation and behavioural change are critical to tackling the environmental crisis.
 

Prospects ‘Future You’ podcast recorded with Programme Director Dan Welch: 

The University of Manchester is one of the world’s top universities for sustainability and global impact – , for global impact against the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Its sociology department is , with its research achieving among the country’s top three universities for power and impact – according to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

The first cohort of the MA Social Change, Environment and Sustainability is planned for 2024 entry.

Find more information about the course and how to apply here.

Many mainstream visions of sustainable societies assume that ‘green’ products will come to replace existing ones, reducing the footprint of consumption and enabling daily life to continue relatively undisturbed. However, several sustainable consumption studies have demonstrated that product substitution is not necessarily a straightforward process. 

This article asks whether the increased consumption of plant-based ‘mylk’, which is marketed as a more sustainable option compared to dairy milk, can be understood as a case of sustainable consumption via product substitution.

The study applies a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey with secondary qualitative data from the Mass Observation Archive. We find that while the consumption of mylk has increased and that of milk decreased, this cannot be characterised as a straightforward case of substitution. 

Many people consume mylk alongside milk, rather than cutting milk consumption entirely. Rising mylk consumption requires the engagement of new, sometimes conflicting, meanings around health and the environment. In addition, a range of situational factors constitute unequal mylk consumption in society, and provisioning systems present important drivers and barriers that shape mylk consumption.

Overall, our account suggests that moving towards sustainable consumption is not a simple process of product substitution as mylk is often consumed in addition to milk, and as this process requires adjustments in practices and meanings, unfolds unevenly within society, and is shaped by production systems rather than just demand.

You can read the full article .

The role of central banks in perpetuating and tackling the economic patterns associated with climate change has increasingly been subject to academic and political attention. The Bank of England is no exception, having received a new mandate to ‘facilitate the transition to net zero’ in March 2021. This follows the Bank’s utilisation of its monetary tools to repeatedly stabilise the economic status quo since 2008, despite its ecological consequences.

This article reveals the perceptions within the British state of the new mandate and the forms of institutional change demanded by it, based on a series of elite interviews with Treasury officials and other UK monetary policy experts, as well as a discourse analysis of Bank publications and speeches.

We find that Bank actors lobbied for the new mandate to legitimise its development of climate risk assessments and licence internal dialogue on the implications of its monetary policy. But the mandate is perceived to be in immediate conflict with, and subservient to, the Bank’s primary structural objective of maintaining price and financial stability, due to the potentially destabilising effects of private capital realignment during a net zero transition.

Institutional change within the Bank is thus limited to extending its pre-existing function of mitigating risks to financial stability rather than facilitating decarbonisation through market-shaping governance of the financial sector.

You can read the full article below:

• - James Jackson, Daniel Bailey, 2023 (sagepub.com)

This article explores a backlash against the net zero greenhouse gas emissions target within the UK. It introduces the term “anti-net zero populism” to analyse ideological and opportunistic counter-movements working to undermine climate policy. 

It builds a conceptual framework based on the literatures on “policy dismantling” and “discursive opportunity structures” to analyse how right-wing populists seek to undermine the net zero goal and dismantle policies. 

The article compares these efforts across six specific policy areas involved in pursuing net zero. Overall, it contributes to understanding the roles of discourse for policy dismantling, and the comparative strategies pursued to undermine net zero. You can read the full article .

Climate/ecological breakdown and automation are two defining challenges of the current era, yet there is little research on their conjunctural intersection. Across experimental landscapes from agriculture to conservation to mining to weather modification, automation technologies are increasingly being presented as the key to fixing, managing and even transcending the turbulent ecologies of the Anthropocene which threaten social and economic reproduction.

This emerging set of visions, experiments and uses rest on the systemic capabilities of bundled robotic and autonomous system technologies (e.g. advanced sensors machine vision, artificial intelligence, robotics) to see, know and intervene in the biophysical world in new ways. This, we argue, potentially represents a shift beyond logics of mitigation and adaptation towards engineering nature in the face of converging environmental threats.

Synthesising insights from existing literature, we develop a conceptual framework for understanding the ‘new ecologies of automation’ and diverse, site-specific applications across what we call ‘operational ecologies’. We then explore a range of diverse exemplars, creating a typology of operational ecologies before discussing key logics, themes and directions for critical research. 

Overall, the makes a significant and original contribution to knowledge in critical geography, and the under-researched intersection between political ecology and automation studies.

explores the invisible, intangible and transient materials and objects of everyday life and the relationships we have with them. 

Drawing on over 15 years of original, empirical research, it builds on growing research on the everyday and unites the established field of material culture and materiality with emerging sociological studies exploring notions of nothing and the unmarked. 

The chapters cover topics such as lost property, museum curation, plastic microfibres, thrift, music and even hair, illuminating how invisible and intangible materials conjure memories, meanings and identities, inextricably binding us to other people, places and things. 

In turn, the book also engages with issues of sustainability and consumption, raising questions regarding society’s increasing need for material accumulation and posing some alternatives.

The complexities and scope of environmental issues have not only outpaced the capacities and responsiveness of traditional political actors but also generated new innovations, constituencies, and approaches to governing environmental problems. 

In response, comparative environmental politics (CEP) has emerged as a vibrant and growing field of scholarly inquiry, embracing new questions and methods even as it addresses enduring questions in the broader field of comparative politics. 

Utilizing a range of methodological approaches, delves into more traditional forms of CEP—the political economy of natural resources and the role of corporations and supply chains—while also showcasing new trends in CEP scholarship, particularly the comparative study of environmental injustice and intersectional inequities.

Carley Chavara, Christian Elliott, Matthew Hoffmann, and , ‘Continuity and change in carbon market politics’, in Jeannie Sowers, Stacy VanDeveer and Erika Weinthal (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, pp.417-434.

This article analyses and theorizes the political strategies of businesses in the new digital ‘platform’ economy. Airbnb, Uber and meal delivery companies have transformed travel, urban space and repertoires of everyday exchange; they are also transforming norms around governance. 

Central to platforms’ corporate political strategies is the use of corporate grassroots lobbying (CGL), the selection, mobilization, resourcing and coordination of ordinary users and grassroots allies to influence the public and policy-making process.

The article argues that platforms build on, and make five innovations to, the most common existing repertoires of CGL. Four main approaches of CGL among these businesses are also identified: temporary mobilization; curated storytelling; front groups; and grassroots alliances. 

The article demonstrates how these approaches to CGL are deployed and combined, using Airbnb as the main case study. Finally, I reflect on the implications of the findings for the platform economy, corporate political activity and socioeconomic change. 

You can read the full article .

Written by Torik Holmes, Carla De Laurentis and Rebecca Windemer.

The making of low-carbon places is crucial for achieving decarbonisation, but where are such places made? 

In extending and combining existing research and ideas, the authors take electricity networks as their starting point to study what they term three ‘infrastructure junctions’, which are places where various practices and processes, with material, spatial, and temporal features, collide and combine in ways that shape the power geometries of low-carbon place-making. 

The authors find that the junctions reveal the conflictual and consensual dimensions of low-carbon transitions and how these features shape and are shaped by the ordering and management of networked hardware. Some features are shared, such as an overarching faith in large-scale provision and unabated demand, whereas others are more unique and rooted in specific contextual realities. 

Such insights support attempts to assess, steer, and accelerate low-carbon place-making as a relational process that is manifest and mediated through infrastructure. The authors conclude that infrastructure junctions offer ripe grounds to examine where, how, when, and for whom low-carbon places are in the making. You can read the .

has written a commentary for the Academy of Social Sciences about what a Net Zero society might look like by 2050, based on her work with the Government Office for Science and the Department for BEIS.

In this piece Maria describes some of the possible models of societal change that could help us meet targets to reduce emissions, exploring the pros and cons of each.

The commentary also explores the need to address issues around energy demand as well as supply, and the importance of prioritising non-technological measures as well as technological solutions. You can read the piece .

Product longevity is one of the most vexed issues in emerging Circular Economy initiatives as it is antithetical to prevailing corporate business models. Yet there are many ways in which the lifespans of products and materials are currently extended within and between households, including through practices of repair, maintenance, gifting and second-hand transactions. 

These activities can be considered forms of ‘consumption work’ that may be critical for the realisation of the Circular Economy but which, like other forms of domestic work, lack visibility and the attribution of value (Hobson et al. 2021). 

Such practices are often entwined with the ‘doing’ of family (Holmes 2019) and are not necessarily considered environmental terms. However, as a critical site of material churn or retention, the household is significant to the broader challenge of sustainable materials use. 

I report on findings of a survey of 2717 households across Australia in which residents were asked about their practices of sharing, maintaining and repairing three types of products: (i) appliances and whitegoods, (ii) furniture and homewares, and (iii) clothing and accessories. The analysis of survey responses provides some insights into the socio-demographic profiles of households most and least likely to promote product longevity for the different product types. I conclude with some reflections on the significance of material churn in and among households for the temporality of the circular economy.

Ruth Lane is an Associate Professor in Human Geography in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, Melbourne. Her research focuses on geographies of waste, reuse and recycling, and contributes both geographical and material-centred perspectives to the problem of urban sustainability and resource consumption. She has variously focused at the scale of the household, the city and the nation and has spanned household waste, industrial waste and urban stormwater. 

She currently leads the ARC Discovery Project, ‘Household innovation and the transition to the low waste city’ and the ARC Linkage Project, ‘Measuring the benefits of reuse in the circular economy’. She is researching mattress recycling as part of the ARC Discovery Project, ‘Investigating innovative waste economies’ led by Professor Gay Hawkins, and leads a sub-project within the National Environmental Science Foundations ‘Sustainable Communities and Waste’ program called, ‘Governing community-led circular economy initiatives in rural and regional Australia’.

Focusing on material and social forms of infrastructure, this edited collection draws on rich empirical details from cities across the global North and South. The book asks the reader to think through the different ways in which infrastructure comes to be present in cities and its co-constitutive relationships with urban inhabitants and wider processes of urbanization.

Considering the climate emergency, economic transformation, public health crises and racialized inequality, the book argues that paying attention to infrastructures’ past, present and future allows us to understand and respond to the current urban condition.

Wiig, A., Ward, K., Enright, T., Hodson, M., Pearsall, H., and Silver, J., (2023) (eds) Infrastructuring Urban Futures: the Politics of Remaking Cities, Bristol University Press: Bristol.

Plastic recycling remains a persistent and stubborn challenge. The UK simply does not recycle enough. And while waste reduction and reuse remain important, there is no getting away from the need to drastically improve rates of recycling.

A new policy report, from the University of Manchester’s ‘l’ research team, explains what is needed to abate the problems faced.

In the report - – the team outline three best practice responses.

They call for policy makers and industry players to better understand the difficulties households face when trying to do the recycling properly. In many cases, these challenges are not of the consumer’s making, lying instead in overly complicated forms of packaging and confusing waste processing systems.

Building on this call, the team stress the need for standardisation and consistency across supply, disposal, and recovery. Simplified packaging, consistent and coherent messaging, and complementing infrastructure should be guiding principles of policy making and investment.

To make sure sustainability is at the core of decision making, there also needs to be a greater awareness of the current and potential fates of waste plastics. The team have developed an that provides this crucial insight. It leaves influential actors well placed to take decisions that limit environmental harm and increase sustainability.

The full report can be accessed and read . It provides a strong footing for the step change in plastics recycling that is clearly and urgently required.

The discussed Professor Gabrys’ recent book of the same title. The book is available open access . 

Here is a synopsis: Environments are increasingly sites of pollution, extraction, disaster, and development. Citizens of Worlds examines how citizen-sensing technologies and practices observe, evidence, and act on environmental disturbance. 

By focusing especially on how people use sensors and sensing technologies to monitor air quality, this book asks who or what constitutes a “citizen” in citizen sensing. How do digital sensing technologies enable or constrain environmental citizenship?

Taking the form of a how-to guide, Citizens of Worlds documents projects from the Citizen Sense research group, which built digital sensor toolkits for documenting and analysing air pollution. This practice-based study describes collaborations with people to monitor air pollution from fracking infrastructure, document traffic emissions, and create air quality gardens. 

In the process of installing sensing technologies, this study considers the aspirations, collaborations, troubleshooting, disappointments, and political change that are forged in specific sensing projects.

As these projects show, how people work with, respond to, care for, shape, fight for, and transform environments informs the political subjects and collectives that they become. Citizens and worlds materialize through attempts to sense and struggle toward more breathable conditions.

Jennifer Gabrys is Chair in Media, Culture and Environment in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She leads the Planetary Praxis research group and is Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project, Smart Forests: Transforming Environments into Social-Political Technologies, which launched the research platform Smart Forests Atlas in 2022.

She also leads the Citizen Sense and AirKit projects, which investigate the use of environmental sensors for new modes of citizen involvement in environmental issues. Both of these projects have received funding from the European Research Council.

In this blog Prof Best and Prof Paterson discuss themes surrounding climate governance and central banking, which emerged during a recent workshop involving leading scholars hosted by the and in February at the University of Manchester.

In the last few years, as central banks have begun to pay attention to climate change, there has been a flurry of academic interest in what central banks are doing and the potential this might hold for climate change action. Yet the crises of the last three years – COVID-19, the return of inflation, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – have complicated the picture, leading us to look again at central banks and their potential role in climate governance and policy.

You can read the full piece .

Young People at a Crossroads (YPAC) explored how migrant-background young people and their families are learning and talking about climate change in 91ֱ�� and Melbourne. We are often told that ‘humanity is at a crossroads’ in relation to climate change, yet this is not the only crossroads in young people’s lives. 

For those who migrate, this experience marks a significant crossroads. YPAC began from this intersection between personal and societal crossroads in relation to migration and climate change, exploring what and how migrant-background (and other) young people are learning about climate change, and how this connects to their families’ experiences of growing up in countries where people have greater experience of adapting to climate change.

The research, conducted in partnership with researchers at University of Melbourne, involved 40 young people aged 14-18, 16 parents and grandparents, and 14 teachers. Young people were invited to become ‘young researchers’ on the project. As young researchers, they interviewed family members about their experiences growing up and into the present and wrote reflections for a beautifully-illustrated creative book entitled ‘Young People at a Crossroads: Stories of climate education, action and adaptation from around the world’.

The research team produced a follow-on resource, ‘Educators’ guide to the YPAC book’, which is designed to support secondary teachers in their teaching on climate change by making connections between curricular requirements in the UK and Australia, and the stories and perspectives shared by YPAC young researchers and their families.

The intergenerational workshops that marked the formal end of the project in December 2022 (Melbourne) and January 2023 (91ֱ��) presented a chance to continue intergenerational conversations and learning that had developed over the course of YPAC by celebrating diverse knowledge and experiences and their value in addressing climate challenges. Education is widely recognised as a key to tackling climate change, and at the workshops young people, together with teachers, researchers, community educators and local councillors, discussed how climate change education can be more hopeful, inclusive and action oriented. 

The resulting report, ‘Moving beyond the crossroads: a practical guide to having hopeful, inclusive and action-oriented conversations about climate change’ complements and extends the YPAC creative book and educators’ guide.

The three reports, along with workshop materials and a video introducing the creative book can be accessed at the .

Dr Catherine Walker has now taken up a new position as Research Fellow at Newcastle University and remains an Honorary Researcher at the SCI.

PhD student Usman Aziz, Elvira Uyarra (MIOIR) and Jo Mylan have written an article on how green city regions can deliver policy to meet net zero for Policy@91ֱ��. You can read the article .

The UK is making progress to achieve net zero, with the latest findings indicating that UK emissions in 2021 fell below 2019 levels. These efforts, however, are still identified as insufficient for fulfilling the Paris Agreement. To lead the way towards a green and just future, regional and urban areas are developing ambitious strategies to reduce emissions and improve social conditions. Such approaches will likely be required to address the significant environmental, social and economic pressures that have occurred since 2019.

Sampriti Mahanty and Frank Boons contributed to the published in the Journal of Physics: Energy. They authored a section of the roadmap which builds a case for integrating responsible innovation in lithium-ion battery recycling. This work is a part of their ongoing project Met4tech where they are creating a roadmap for the circulation of technology metals in the UK. The paper can be accessed .

Abstract

The market dynamics, and their impact on a future circular economy for lithium-ion batteries (LIB), are presented in this roadmap, with safety as an integral consideration throughout the life cycle. At the point of end-of-life, there is a range of potential options – remanufacturing, reuse and recycling. Diagnostics play a significant role in evaluating the state of health and condition of batteries, and improvements to diagnostic techniques are evaluated. At present, manual disassembly dominates end-of-life disposal, however, given the volumes of future batteries that are to be anticipated, automated approaches to the dismantling of end-of-life battery packs will be key. The first stage in recycling after the removal of the cells is the initial cell-breaking or opening step. Approaches to this are reviewed, contrasting shredding and cell disassembly as two alternative approaches. Design for recycling is one approach that could assist in easier disassembly of cells, and new approaches to cell design that could enable the circular economy of LIBs are reviewed. After disassembly, subsequent separation of the black mass is performed before further concentration of components. There are a plethora of alternative approaches for recovering materials; this roadmap sets out the future directions for a range of approaches including pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, short-loop, direct, and the biological recovery of LIB materials. Furthermore, anode, lithium, electrolyte, binder and plastics recovery are considered in the range of approaches in order to maximise the proportion of materials recovered, minimise waste and point the way towards zero-waste recycling. The life-cycle implications of a circular economy are discussed considering the overall system of LIB recycling, and also directly investigating the different recycling methods. The legal and regulatory perspectives are also considered. Finally, with a view to the future, approaches for next-generation battery chemistries and recycling are evaluated, identifying gaps for research.

Zarina Ahmad wrote a blog post for ClimateXChange in anticipation of International Day of Women and Girls in Science. In the blog she discusses in a blog how to improve inclusion of women from diverse backgrounds in research and policymaking. You can read the full blog .

Several years ago, the Scottish Government began a national programme enabling communities to tackle climate change. From 2013, Zarina has been directly involved in setting up over 150 projects run by people of colour and from minority ethnic backgrounds. The projects were of different scales, from a one-off event to seven-year long projects. What she found during that time was that it was mostly women who were running those projects. They were passionate about doing work to tackle climate change, finding solutions and driving change. However, there was a majority of men in senior jobs such as policymaking, where people are more likely to be heard.

Dale Southerton and Alan Warde have just published an essay on sustainable consumption in a collection of papers in honour of Hal Wilhite. Hal was a social anthropologist working on issues of consumption and sustainability with a special interest in energy. The whole book is open access and the link is below. It has sections on: Energy, technology and everyday consumption; Mobility; Well-being; and Making consumption more sustainable.

The essay is entitled 'Towards sustainable consumption: reflections on the concepts of social loading, excess, and idle capacity' and was published in in Arve Hansen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen’s Consumption, Sustainability and Everyday Life: Essays in honour of Hal Wilhite. You can read it .

Filippo Oncini has published the paper "Hunger bonds: Boundaries and Bridges in the Charitable Food Provision Field" in Sociology. The paper is available open access .

Abstract
Building on a field perspective, this article adopts a relational approach that lets us make sense of food charities’ interconnections, relationships and social positioning. I analyse how food charities working with different models of provision do boundary work and resolve the cognitive dissonance arising from simultaneously competing and collaborating. Making use of several semi-structured interviews, I illustrate how Trussell Trust food banks, independent food banks and pantries’ directors mark symbolic boundaries when illustrating their models of provision vis-a-vis other models (e.g. pantries vs food banks) but build symbolic bridges when discussing the ultimate ends of charitable food provision. This strategy lets them resolve the tension arising from two contradictory stances and is representative of what I call ‘hunger bonds’: relationships of cooperation and mutual help that also permit positional returns to be obtained and strategically advance a specific vision of the field order.

Ali Browne co-published the journal article ‘Smartening up: User experience with smart water metering infrastructure in an African city’ with Godfred Amankwaa and Richard Heeks in Utilities Policy.

Abstract
Worldwide, smart metering is becoming increasingly prevalent in the utility sector, sometimes as part of extensive smart grid projects or within strategies aimed at the digital transformation of utilities. In the water sector, smart water metering infrastructure has been positioned to alleviate key water management and water access challenges. To date, there has been little empirical investigation into how it is deployed, implemented and experienced by end-users in urban Global South contexts. This study uses a socio-technical lens to address this evidence gap with a mixed-method empirical case study from urban Ghana. Results show smart meters as a utility-centric socio-technical infrastructure, with the water utility having designed the customer out of its current rollout approach. The utility's approach is an incremental one that is responsive to the existing context yet provides limited upgrades and impacts to existing systems and actors. We demonstrate how smart meters are much more than neutral, often shaped through everyday realities but have also become new junctions of friction, mistrust and scepticism between the utility and users. In exploring these issues, we raise questions about the smart metering agenda and related digital transformation policies of utilities, highlighting directions towards more customer-centric design and implementation in the design and deployment of digital water infrastructure.

SCI Honorary Researcher Tally Katz-Gerro co-published the paper ‘Between perceptions and practices: The religious and cultural aspects of food wastage in households’ in Appetite. You can access the paper for free .

Abstract

Understanding the determinants of food provisioning is crucial for efforts to reduce household food wastage. Various studies have identified a web of interrelated socio-demographic characteristics, values, attitudes, and skills as drivers of household food wastage. Our contribution is in exploring the relationship between cultural and religious views and food waste generation. We do that in the context of three social groups in Israel: secular Jews, religious Jews, and Muslim Arabs. We interviewed 27 individuals who have a certain standing in their respective communities with broad perspective of the cultural context of food-related issues. Our results highlight the conflict between religious and secular values and actual food wastage practices. We identified several factors that lead to household food wastage: past scarcity, the consumer culture, and hospitality. We found various ways by which cultural and religious values shape food-waste perceptions. Results show a dissonance between food-related motivations and actual practices. We also demonstrate how the dissonance can be reconciled, both on the level of justification and on the level of action. 

Professor Sherilyn MacGregor co-published the article ‘Taking Political Time: Thinking Past the Emergency Timescapes of the New Climate Movements’ in South Atlantic Quarterly. You can read the article. 

Abstract

The article discusses the contrasting “temporal regimes” of Extinction Rebellion and the concept of a feminist green new deal. The authors discuss the former’s emphasis on emergency to stimulate disobedient action, particularly out of concern for one’s future children and grandchildren. They argue that, while this emphasis has successfully catalyzed public agency, this agency remains socially narrow, as emergency thinking subordinates the political time central to inclusive movement building, while the personalization of intergenerational concern risks reproducing privilege and asset protection. As a result, actually existing material and symbolic inequalities are characteristically decentered. The authors contrast this with the times-capes of calls for a feminist green new deal, which eschew both crisis narratives and reprocentric futurism. In troubled times, they conclude, it is more productive to reconsider not just when but how to address the demands of climate breakdown.

Postdoctoral Researcher Udeni Salmon has published the paper "“It's wicked hard to fight covert racism”: The case of microaggressions in science research organizations" on intersectional discrimination in STEM research careers ed in Gender, Work and Organization. The paper was published as part of an ESRC-funding project at the University of Lincoln. The paper can be read on an open-access basis . 

Abstract

The intersection of race and gender discrimination has resulted in the pervasive under-representation of women of color (WOC) in science careers, with research identifying that microaggressions are a key contributory factor to the imbalance. This study aims to compare individual experiences of microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations with institutional responses, thereby outlining the disconnects between the perspectives of minoritized scientists and those in positions of power. This paper draws on a constructivist paradigm to compare the experiences of women of color scientists with organizational representatives through 31 interviews conducted in science research organizations in the United Kingdom. The results find that organizational understandings of microaggressions differ substantially from those of WOC scientists. Furthermore, organizational responses favor policy-based solutions that fail to address the slippery and deniable nature of microaggressions. The paper concludes that, contrary to the more prevalent popular diversity initiatives, a greater belief in the testimony of WOC scientists amplified by institutional responses that empower their identity as scientists would be more effective strategies to reduce the sense of shame and isolation caused by subtle forms of discrimination.

Malte Rodl has co-published a new article entitled “Internet search results could be increasing your carbon emissions” with Jutta Haider in The Conversation. In the article based on a recently published paper they argue that the assumptions search engines make about what we are looking for may lead to people emitting more carbon than they would have done otherwise. You can read the article . 

On Tuesday, 31st January, ’ launch of her book is taking place from 3pm in 10.007 and on .

Can the UK expand Heathrow airport, bringing in 700 extra planes a day, and still stay within ambitious carbon budgets? One legal case sought to answer this question. Campaigning lawyers argued that plans for a third runway at one of the world's busiest airports would jeopardise the UK's ability to meet its commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. This book traces the dramatic story of how the case was prepared - and why international aviation has for so long avoided meaningful limits on its expansion.

Hosted by the SCI and 91ֱ�� University Press we will be hearing from Celeste as well as a panel consisting of (SCI), (SCI, Movements@91ֱ��) and (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research). 

The study was completed on behalf of the Greater 91ֱ�� Combined Authority (GMCA) and was funded by Research England. The objective was to contribute to an evidence base for an update of the Greater 91ֱ�� Local Industrial Strategy (GM LIS).

The researches how reconfiguring consumption and production systems can contribute to less resource-intensive ways of life. Its projects explore the social relationships that hinder change, as well as those that might enable the transition to greater sustainability.

The analyses the dynamics and impacts of science, technology and innovation and the role of management, policy and societal behaviour more generally and how these contribute to the economy and human well-being.

Published originally in 2019, the GM LIS was one of the UK’s first modern local industrial strategies. It advocated a clean growth mission to achieve net-zero by 2038 and brought attention to the importance of both everyday ‘foundational’ sectors, and high-technology ‘frontier’ sectors, for regional economic progress. By 2022, however, local policymakers stated that the GM LIS required an update in order to better address emerging environmental, social and economic pressures, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To support the policy refresh, the MIOIR and SCI published that analysed best practice of sustainability initiatives involving the foundational economy. These practices were identified in three international case studies, of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), the Basque Country (Spain), and Washington, D.C. (USA), with a fourth case involving Greater 91ֱ��. The report found that foundational sectors must be included in regional economic policies, because they can yield profound impacts on both climate and society. 

Moreover, sustainability innovation in foundational sectors can be a valuable source of climate mitigation, improvements in social equity, and improvements in economic outcomes such as productivity. Innovation in foundational sectors, therefore, can support green and just objectives in city-regions, offering multiple forms of value creation for climate, society, and economy.

The conference kicked off with the first keynote from high school English teacher and activist Matt Carmichael on "Climate change: What's at stake in high schools? And what can we do?".

Catherine then spoke about her ESRC-funded Young People at a Crossroads project. She wanted to specifically investigate migrant families' experiences of climate change as they have had to rethink practices and adapt to a new context upon moving to a new country. 
Migrants from the some countries in the Global South often already experienced the effects of climate change in their home country, which made hearing their experiences all the more important.

"I feel it would be nice to have like different perspectives from different countries as well, you know, not just our own [...] I feel like people would have like a different perspective of the world around us, not just Australia. And [we can] learn from different countries." - Akos, Melbourne

A number of outputs such as the 'Creative Project Book' for students and 'Educator's Guide' have been published in recent months and are available for download . 

The Educator's Guide explains how a whole school approach to climate change is both necessary and possible & takes you through ways of initiating a whole school approach, so that educators working across subjects can teach on climate change effectively & confidently. 

It presents spark ideas for working with the YPAC creative book. They are adaptable to different year levels, subjects, and curricular contexts, and will easily ignite your own ideas. Whilst written for secondary schools, this guide can be adapted to primary schools.

Her main takeaways are:

• "How can you bring a focus on climate justice into your classroom?"
• "How can you do this in a helpful, empowering & action-oriented way?"
• "How can you work with students, colleagues across subject areas, and management to achieve this?"

Illustration by Maisy Summer.

Water-related risks undermine human development and can contribute to migration and displacement, food insecurity, political instability, and conflict. During the online seminar in November 2022 SCI PhD student , her supervisors (Politics) and (Geography), lecturer (politics) and (Engineering) shared their research which intersects with water, peace, security, and sustainability. The panel was chaired by SCI Director .

The panellists discussed their research from different perspectives, with a focus on links between water-related challenges, conflict risks, and or the role of water as an instrument for peace and sustainability.

Chantal talked about her PhD research on the Water-Peace Nexus in Liberia and honed in on water insecurity and its contributing factors in the West-African country. Julien Harou (Department of Engineering) spoke about the engineering and environmental and economic performance of human-natural systems and how to combat issues such as water insecurity through these systems. Chantal's co-supervisor Laura McLeod told attendees about her research on gender, global governance and peace-building indicators. She emphasised that sustainability, water security and gender insecurity are closely connected. Carl Death researches environmental sustainability in Africa and spoke about how water-related issues such as water supply and marine biodiversity are highly politicised.

We have now made the recording of the seminar available. Please find it below or on our channel.

Drawing on a range of examples from around the world, the report examines how digital platforms have responded to the shock to urban mobility created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report analyses six different kinds of response and how these have contributed to changing patterns of urban mobility, highlighting three key implications for urban transport authorities, policymakers and practitioners working in the area of urban transport, especially in the UK:

• First, the global pandemic and platform-based responses to the shock to urban mobility pose serious challenges to agglomeration thinking which has dominated urban transport policy and planning in recent decades. Changing patterns of mobility and its implications for urban geography presents a pressing strategic concern for urban transport authorities.
   
• Second, COVID-19 has accelerated and intensified the reshaping of urban mobility by digital platforms. These include growing pressures on public transport operators; intensifying surveillance and datafication of urban transport; an increasingly fragmented and unequal urban landscape of work, mobility patterns and transport provision; further experimentation with alternative forms of private platform-based mobility provision.
   
• Third, responses to the pandemic have shone light on opportunities for transport authorities to mobilise platforms to strategically shape urban mobility for the common good. However, in order to create truly integrated urban transport systems and meet today’s mobility challenges, urban transport authorities clearly need significantly greater power, resources and expertise. This is especially important with respect to the ownership and control of urban mobility data and integrative mobility-as-a-service platforms.

Read the full report: 

For further information or questions, please contact:

• Dr Andy Lockhart (lead author): andrew.lockhart@manchester.ac.uk
• Prof Mike Hodson (project lead): michael.hodson@manchester.ac.uk

Photo by on

It is widely accepted that overcoming the social-ecological crises we face requires major changes to the food system. However, opinions diverge on the question whether those ‘great efforts’ towards sustainability require systemic changes or merely systematic ones. Drawing upon Brand and Wissen’s concept of “imperial modes of living”, we ask whether the lively debates about sustainability and ‘ethical’ consumption among producers and consumers in Germany are far reaching enough to sufficiently reduce the imperial weight on the environment and other human and nonhuman animals. 

By combining discourse analysis of agri-food businesses’ sustainability reports with narrative consumer interviews, we examine understandings of sustainability in discourses concerning responsible food provision and shed light on how those discourses are inscribed in consumers’ everyday food practices. We adopt Ehgartner’s discursive frames of ‘consumer sovereignty’, ‘economic rationality’, and ‘stewardship’ to illustrate our findings, and add a fourth one of ‘legitimacy’. 

Constituting the conditions under which food-related themes become sustainability issues, these frames help businesses to (1) individualise the responsibility to enact changes, (2) tie efforts towards sustainability to financial profits, (3) subject people and nature to the combination of care and control, and (4) convey legitimacy through scientific authority. 

We discuss how these frames, mirrored in some consumer narratives, work to sideline deeper engagement with ecological sustainability and social justice, and how they brush aside the desires of some ostensibly ‘sovereign’ consumers to overcome imperial modes of food provision through much more far reaching, systemic changes. Finally, we reflect on possible paths towards a de-imperialised food system.

Steffen would like to mention that whilst this paper derives from his work with colleagues at the University of Graz, Austria and uses empirical data from Germany, a lot of SCI-DNA is involved in this paper. Mat Paterson and Ulrike Ehgartner have provided very helpful comments on earlier drafts and the paper draws conceptually on insights from Ulrike’s PhD thesis (and slightly extends them). We also draw upon Dan Welch’s and Alan Warde’s recent reflections on “renewing theories of practice” in Cultural Sociology.   

The full article can be accessed .

The interactive workshop led by Filippo explored the role of urban gardening in helping us to build safe, resilient and sustainable cities, and how and other urban growers are driving environmental and social change across our city-region.

With 30% of the UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions produced by our food systems, , Lecturer in Sustainability and Innovation at the University, conducted research on why we must incorporate food into 91ֱ��’s Climate Change Response, and the transformational possibilities of sustainable food in the city.

The people behind 91ֱ�� Urban Diggers also gave attendees a tour of their premises and talked about their experience of setting up a community market garden and other community food growing projects across Greater 91ֱ��.

The workshop built on the findings of a research partnership between MUD and three 91ֱ��-based researchers: , (The University of Manchester), Ling Li (The University of Liverpool) and Sarah Walker (91ֱ�� Metropolitan University). The workshop was facilitated by , based at The University of Manchester and funded by the .

Urban energy transitions have increasingly formed a central topic of research over the past two decades. This is, in part, because ‘modern urbanised societies are massively dependent on energy’ - cities are understood to account for close to ‘75% of global carbon dioxide emissions and 75% of energy consumption’. 

Strategic vehicles

It is also because cities are understood to form ‘strategic vehicles’ and ‘critical stakeholders in the development of responses to climate change’, with local authorities, organisations, communities and activism groups involved in managing and/or trying to steer systems of provision (for example transport, electricity, waste, etc), patterns of consumption (for example to do with travel, land use, heating) and climate action (for example through localised policies and direct action). Scholars from various disciplines and research traditions have accordingly sought to examine the socio-technical dynamics of urban energy transitions.

To date, a present and future-oriented interest in transitions in context and in action permeates much urban energy transitions research. Less attention has been paid to how cities become demanding and challenging sites over time. This being the case, understanding how energy demand is made in cities offers fresh opportunities to reveal the ‘multiple spatio-temporal rhythms of transitions’ and possibilities to (re)design programmes of mitigation. These suggestions are premised on the idea that ‘spatially-engaged energy research can make step-change contributions to understand the global energy challenge’.

A relational-space-inspired approach 

In a new journal article Dr Torik Holmes introduces a novel relational-space-inspired approach apt for exploring and helping to explain how cities become demanding sites over time. This approach takes inspiration from Hui and Walker’s practice-based work concerning the spatial dimensions of energy demand and Massey’s relational conceptualisation of space.

The approach sees the spatial constitution of energy demand in cities treated as emergent of multiple intersecting practices that combine and react unevenly over time, helping to shape socio-material patterns of consumption and supply. ‘The language of “spatial constitution” pushes beyond the mere fact of absolute location’ and toward an examination of ‘how a variety of spatial relations make a difference to [the] form, structure and function’ of cities and energy demand therein. Dr Holmes argues that examining the spatial constitution of energy demand in cities affords new opportunities to reveal the ‘power-geometries’ of demanding spaces in the making. In turn, further opportunities are afforded to (re)evaluate the roles, responsibilities and capacities of different actors and the effects of specific practice and policy combinations that do not necessarily support urban decarbonisation transitions.

A new set of ideas

By reviewing literature connected with the study of urban energy transitions he shows that the spatial constitution of demand in cities over time remains a relatively neglected area of study. In response, he introduces a set of ideas that inform a relational-space-inspired approach useful for examining the spatial constitution of demand. Consequently the approach and research undertaken are discussed, which help reveal how, where and when demand is made in cities.

Read the full article:

On Monday 18 October the 4th Greater 91ֱ�� Combined Authority (GMCA) Green Summit took place at The Lowry in Salford.

The Summit, themed around communities and ‘Taking people on the journey’, invited talks and presentations from individuals, the community and voluntary sector and businesses.

Dr. Nafhesa Ali, Sociologist and Research Associate at the University's Sustainable Consumption Institute and on the Leverhulme Trust funded ‘Towards Inclusive Environmental Sustainability (TIES)’ project, was invited to give a lightening talk in the Session ‘The complexity of environmental engagement’. 

Two key points emerged: 

1. The importance of building bridges between professionals within the environment sector and individuals, communities and grassroots organisations living and working in Greater 91ֱ��. 
2.  There is an understanding that communities and individuals do want to engage and talk, and that it is time to move away from terms that suggest engagement is ‘complex’.  How we can do this:

• Training on ‘how to engage communities and individuals’ by people who already do this well, which may include, but is not limited to, training by grassroots organisations, individuals who are happy to represent minority communities and/or individuals/other professionals who work with engaging people on a daily basis. 
• Reduce consultation fatigue by reciprocal engagement. 
• Ensure an inclusive consultation process by including a diverse range of individuals and communities are involved in the consultation process. 

3. Actions need to be accessible and doable for people on the ground. It is important to acknowledge and recognise that social inequalities can hinder involvement with the environment agenda, but if actions are ‘doable’ and realistic this will support and increase engagement from the residents of Greater 91ֱ��.

The session was chaired by Zamzam Ibrahim, Vice President of European Students Union, also included lightening talks from Emma Gardner, Diocese of Salford; Caroline Kennedy, M6 Theatre Rochdale and Clare Fallon, Growth Company.

On Monday 27^th September, 2021, the Leverhulme Trust funded project hosted their first online webinar “How Muslims in Britain engage with, and understand, environmental sustainability” in collaboration with the (MCB) and the (MBRN). This collaborative conference hosted by the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), MBRN and MCB who bring together a unique mix of voices and perspectives showcasing how British Muslims engage with, and understand, environmental sustainability.

Speakers included:

• Zara Mohammed, Secretary-General, Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)
• Dr. Safina Islam, Head of Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre (AIURC)
• Rianne C. ten Veen, Environmental Author of 199 Ways to Please God
• Kamran Shezad, Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES)
• Alessandra Palange, Muslims Declare
• Rabiah Mali, Green Deen Tribe
• Dr. Lutfi Radwan, Willowbrook Farm
• Dr. Jeremy Kidwell, University of Birmingham
• Linsay Taylor, Scottish Regional Manager for MEND
• Shefali Kapoor, Head of Neighbourhoods, 91ֱ�� City Council (MCC)

Muslims in the United Kingdom (UK) have faced both socio-economic and socio-cultural marginalisation due to ethno-religious identities and migratory backgrounds. This societal marginalisation is reflected in research, policy, practice and engagement around what researchers call ‘pro-environmental behaviour’ (Brackertz 2007; Pollard et al. 2019). 

Alongside experiences of structural inequality, the British Muslim experience is framed by religious practices and beliefs, and strong ethno-religious community ties. This conference brings together a unique mix of academics, policymakers and religiously motivated community activists and organisations to draw attention to how faith in Islam influences the practices, behaviours, and lifestyles of Muslims to care for the environment.

Our discussions will focus on practical ways in which, often marginalised, Muslim voices can be included in wider debates around the environment, climate change and the green policy agenda.

 Conference aims:

• To recognise the ways in which Muslims engage in positive environmental practices.

• Explore how issues of sustainability and the environment relate to Islamic beliefs and practices.

• Engage in dialogue about how Muslims can meaningfully and purposefully be engaged in wider debates around issues of sustainability and the environment.

Each of the collaborating organisations will host a panel of key speakers in the field of Muslims and environmental sustainability to address the following questions:

• How do Muslim's experience and practice environmental sustainability in their everyday lives?

• How do British Muslims understand, and respond to, issues of sustainability and environmental concern through community activism?

• How can Muslim communities be involved in designing and implementing environmental policy and initiatives?

The TIES project analyses of the intersecting challenges of environmental degradation and immigration have paid little attention to the cultural dimensions of environmental problems and policy solutions at a time when many ‘first world’ cities are becoming more heterogeneous. Little is known about how culturally-specific notions of sustainability, premised on the need to reduce the impacts of Western over-consumption, are understood by people with non-Western world views and lifestyles who have settled in cities of the Global North. This knowledge gap is problematic not only because the success of sustainability agendas depends on maximum societal uptake, but also because misalignment of cultural norms and practices may contribute to a lack of social cohesion in diverse cities seeking to be more inclusive.

The project investigates how migration from Global South (GS) to Global North (GN) and the drive for urban sustainability intersect at household level in Greater 91ֱ��, a city-region that has both increasing immigration and ethnic diversity and aspirations to become a leading green city in Europe.

By applying a mixed-methods, co-produced approach to research this study explores how immigrants from Pakistan and Somalia, two of the largest and fastest-growing groups in 91ֱ��, perceive the green agenda and engage in 'environmentally significant' practices in daily life. We are also investigating the ways that draw attention to immigrants’ engagement in sustainability practices which contribute to building social cohesion and community resilience.

Uniquely, this is the first in-depth study of the intersections of immigration and household sustainability in the UK.

raises concerns about the proliferation of Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms (STLs) in the city and its effects on local residents. 

The report (), written by academics, journalists and members of Greater 91ֱ�� Tenants Union and Greater 91ֱ�� Housing Action, finds a year on year growth rate of over 300% in Airbnb listings in 91ֱ�� between 2016 and 2020, and of nearly 400% for entire properties. 

Figures suggested if pre-pandemic growth trends continued at the same level they had for the previous four-year period, 91ֱ�� would lose huge chunks of its housing stock to short-term lets. 

By the end of the decade the transfer of long term rental properties into the short term sector might shut out over 4,000 households or 9,400 residents. With more than 13,000 households on the social housing waiting list home sharing platforms such as Airbnb will massively exacerbate the housing crisis. 

It focuses its analysis on the neighbourhoods of Moss Side and the Northern Quarter, showing that the problems of anti-social behaviour and disruption to neighbours exist in increasing numbers outside of the city centre and are leading to the loss of family homes. 

While so far 91ֱ�� has treated the problem of STLs only in terms of impacts of anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood disruption; the report links these issues with the broader impact that short-term lets is having on our housing market, with the housing available to short-term visitors already greater than 91ֱ��’s priority social housing list. 

The report notes the increasing domination of Airbnb by professional landlords and agencies which manage properties on behalf of landlords, rather than ‘hosts’ renting out spare rooms. Twelve such ‘management services’ exist in the city. 

The report highlights how the short term letting market is removing housing from the stock available to local people to buy or rent, and orientating it towards the tourist or short-stay market. 

The research calls for greater regulation of the short term rental market, and for the Council to fully engage with affected communities.

The research was undertaken by Dr Luke Yates (University of Manchester), Dr Jonathan Silver (University of Sheffield), Andrea Sandor, Isaac Rose and Rowena Davis.

The full report can be downloaded.

Circular Economy frameworks have become central to debates and interventions that aim to reduce global resource use and environmental despoilment. As pathways to both systemic and micro-scale transformations, there remain many challenges to making Circular Economy actionable.

One such challenge is facilitating the emergence of the ‘circular consumer’. Here, we are all encouraged to shift everyday practices to consume new products and services and/or participate in the ‘Sharing Economy’: all of which are claimed, in some prominent debates, to automatically offer more ‘convenience’ for the consumer. In response, this paper argues that viewing such debates through the lens of Consumption Work offers a different picture of what it takes to be, and what we need to know about, the circular consumer.

Consumption Work refers to the labour integral to the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of goods and services. This paper argues that the nature and scope of such work has been underplayed in Circular Economy debates to date, and that becoming a circular consumer requires varied and unevenly distributed forms of Consumption Work, which in turn, has significant implications for the success of Circular Economy.

This paper thus proposes a research agenda into this topic, outlining five, inter-related, critical issues that a Circular Economy research agenda must address, including questions of who undertakes Consumption Work; to what ends; and how its multiple forms are coordinated within and beyond the household.

Hobson, K., Holmes, H., Welch, D., Wheeler, K. and Wieser, H. (2021). , Journal of Cleaner Production.

A report by Usman Aziz and Jo Mylan titled ‘Incorporating Food into 91ֱ��’s Climate Change Response: Part 1: Why 91ֱ�� Needs a Sustainable Food Mission to Support a Green and Just Recovery from COVID-19’ has been published, which will form part of the evidence base for the refresh of the 91ֱ�� Climate Change Framework 2021-25. It is now available on the 91ֱ�� Climate Change Agency and CitiCo websites.

This report aims to:

1. Present evidence highlighting key problem areas of the current, unsustainable food system in 91ֱ��;

2. Introduce a Sustainable Food Mission to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration, thereby ensuring the best outcomes for 91ֱ�� citizens and the environmental implications of the city’s food consumption;

3. Suggest that the development and adoption of a mission-led approach would align motivation and action across public and private domains to support delivery on Sustainable Food; and

4. Highlight the multiple co-benefits in domains of environmental impact, health, well-being and the local economy which can accompany a Sustainable Food Mission.

Prof Mat Paterson has recently published his new book ‘In Search of Climate Politics’ to answer the question of ways in which climate change is political. This book addresses this key - but oddly neglected - question. It argues that in order to answer it we need to understand politics in a three-fold way: as a site of authoritative, public decision-making; as a question of power; and as a conflictual phenomenon. Recurring themes center on de- and re-politicization, and a tension between attempts to simplify climate change to a single problem and its intrinsic complexity.

These dynamics are driven by processes of capital accumulation and their associated subjectivities. The book explores these arguments through an analysis of a specific city - Ottawa - which acts as a microcosm of these broader processes. It provides detailed analyses of conflicts over urban planning, transport, and attempts by city government and other institutions to address climate change. The book will be valuable for students and researches looking at the politics of climate change.

Paterson, M. (2021). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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