905!,=0,> (5+ 66205. 69>(9+ - University of Manchester

As one of the key research institutes of The University of Manchester, the SCI seeks to combine the excellence of individualresearchers with effective group practices todeliver meaningful research that has academicas well as societal relevance. The items in thisnewsletter, which reports on the academicyear 2018-2019, shows how we have beensuccesfully doing this. I am very pleased tocongratulate two SCI members, Frank Geelsand Alan Warde, on receiving recognition fortheir work. Both Alan and Frank have been keyin the development of core areas of researchwithin the SCI, and it is gratifying to see thatsuch work is appreciated across the academiccommunities to which we seek to contribute.

We continue to build on the work of Alan, Frankand other SCI members, as we move towards asituation where the SCI is no longer dependenton a single funder, but instead strategicallyseeks funding in an increasingly competitiveenvironment.

This success comes out of hard work done by all SCI members to develop the social practicesnecessary to acquire funding without losingfocus on academic excellence. Through aninternal competition we selected initiatives forone year projects that we see as kernels offuture research activity. As the report in thisnewsletter shows, we have been able to generateimmediate outputs from this funding. Perhapsthe greatest effort to do this has been ourResearch and Internationalisation Fund (see p. 4).

One crucial result has been the development ofour international networks around key areas ofresearch such as digital urban platforms, socialmovements, consumption work, and social

inequality. For me this Fund, using small grantsof £5000, is an example I would like to seereplicated in other contexts within theUniversity; as we have proven, such smallgrants, if awarded and then monitored in acoherent and contextualised way (a keycondition!), provide excellent value for money.

These initiatives all contribute to our maintarget for the coming academic year: thefinalisation and presentation of our renewedresearch agenda. As the item on the SCI Festivaldescribes (p.12), we are working towards anevent that promises to create a lot of buzz, andwhich will allow us to cement our position as aleading institute in the area of sustainableconsumption and production in the years to come.

The ESRC-funded project Imagined futures of consumption is one of the early successes ofour new strategy (see p. 11).

Contact:[email protected]

Sustainable Consumption Institute

The Year in Review and Looking ForwardFrank Boons, Director

SCI Newsletter Autumn 2019

KD506 SCI Newsletter 2019.qxp_Layout 1 06/09/2019 12:47 Page 1

SCI Newsletter page 2 Autumn 2019

Joe Blakey

Congratulations to Dr Joe Blakey, whosuccessfully defended his PhD thesis on 19February 2019. Joe’s thesis examines therelationship between carbon accounting andpost-foundational approaches to ‘the political’.It considers how accounting and accountingstandardisation shape what (in)action is seenas legitimate through an auto-ethnographyof accounting for Manchester’s carbonfootprint and a series of interviews withpolicy-makers, accountants and activists.The thesis was supervised by Dr AlisonBrowne and Prof Erik Swyngedouw. It wasexamined by Prof James Evans (TheUniversity of Manchester) and Prof ScottPrudham (University of Toronto). Joe has a 2 year lectureship in Geography, and you can read more about his work in TheConversation https://theconversation.com/profiles/joe-blakey-454157/articles.Congratulations again Joe!

Marc Hudson

Congratulations to Dr Marc Hudson, whosuccessfully defended his PhD thesis on 7 January 2019. The thesis was examined by Prof Peter Newell from the University of Sussex (external) and Prof Mat Paterson fromThe University of Manchester. Marc’s thesis,“Enacted inertia: incumbent resistance tocarbon pricing in Australia (1989-2011)"examined the strategies and actions of industryincumbents in the Australian coal sector as theysought to defend the status quo in the face ofattempts to introduce radical carbon reductionpolicies. Prof Andrew McMeekin and Dr MikeHodson supervised the research. Marc haspublished many articles in The Conversation,drawing on his PhD research, which can beaccessed at https://theconversation.com/profiles/marc-hudson-180939.

Ulrike Ehgartner

Ulrike Ehgartner was awarded her PhD in April2019, following a successful viva examined byBente Halkier (Prof of Sociology, University ofCopenhagen), and Alan Warde (Prof of Sociology,The University of Manchester). Ulrike’s thesis,titled “Environmentally and socially responsibleconsumption? A study on food sustainabilitydiscourses” analysed understandings ofsustainability and consumption of food amongstUK expert stakeholders, including supermarketsustainability professionals, policy makers, NGOpractitioners, and journalists. Dr Ehgartner hasalready published on her research in the journalSustainable Consumption & Production, as wellas with fellow SCI doctoral researchers in GlobalDiscourse. We are pleased that Ulrike continuesto work at the SCI as a Research Associate onthe ESRC funded “Imagined Futures ofConsumption” project (see p. 11). Her thesiswas co-supervised by former SCI Director, Dale Southerton (now Prof of Sociology ofConsumption, University of Bristol) and theSCI’s Dan Welch (Lecturer in Sociology).

PhD Congratulations

Anna Wienhues

Congratulations to Dr Anna Wienhues, whosuccessfully defended her PhD thesis in May2018. Anna's thesis, ‘Life in Common:Distributive Ecological Justice on a SharedEarth’, develops an account of justice tononhumans (ie, to animals, plants, etc), which sits at the forefront of currentposthumanist theoretical developments inpolitical thought. Her thesis was supervisedby Sherilyn MacGregor (Politics/SCI) andJohn O’Neill (Philosophy), and it wasexamined by Carl Death (Politics, Universityof Manchester) and Elizabeth Cripps (Politics,University of Edinburgh). Two journal articlesfrom her doctoral research were publishedwhile Anna was a member of the SCI:

Wienhues, A. (2018) ‘Situating the Half-EarthProposal in Distributive Justice: Conditionsfor Just Conservation’ BiologicalConservation, 228C, 44-51.

Wienhues, A. (2017) ‘Sharing the Earth: ABiocentric Account of Ecological Justice.’Journal of Agricultural and EnvironmentalEthics, 30 (3), 367-385.

Since March 2019 Anna has been aPostdoctoral Researcher at the EthicsResearch Institute of the University ofZurich, Switzerland, employed full-time onAnna Deplazes Zemp’s project ‘Peoples’Place in Nature’ funded by the NOMISFoundation and the University ResearchPriority Programme (URPP) on GlobalChange and Biodiversity. She also has a bookmanuscript based on her PhD thesis underreview with Bristol University Press.Congratulations again Anna!

Niki Hutson

Congratulations to Dr Niki Hutson, who wasawarded her PhD at the end of 2017 followinga successful viva examined by Prof PatrickVermeulen from Nijmegen University(external) and Professor Jonatan Pinkse fromThe University of Manchester (internal).Niki’s thesis is titled ‘Exploring theInstitutional Work of an Industry Associationin the Greening of Industrial Sectors’. Thestudy focused on sustainability challengesfaced by the coatings industry and the rolethat a key industry association played inshaping innovative responses. The researchwas supervised by Prof Andrew McMeekinand Dr Paul Dewick. Niki now works asproject manager for GlobeScan, providinginsight and strategy for sustainable changeto help companies, NGOs and governmentalorganizations address sustainabledevelopment goals.


On 29 April 2019, Sherilyn MacGregor, Tally Katz-Gerro and Catherine Walker held acommunity engagement event at ClaremontPrimary School (CPS), Moss Side, to sharefindings from their SCI-funded study‘Environmental Sustainability: SomaliPerspectives’. The Somali phrase Kaalay AanShaah Cabnee (‘come and let’s have teatogether’) summed up the informalatmosphere at this event, where Somaliresidents of Moss Side had a chance to hearand comment on findings from researchcompleted between August and October 2018.

The event was attended by 21 people, includingSomali parents/carers with children at CPS,study participants, representatives from theSomali Adult Social Care Association, the localenvironmental group Upping It, the Al Furqanmosque and Mahadi Hussein Sharif -Mahamed,Councillor for Moss Side and AssistantExecutive Member for Neighbourhoods forManchester City Council.

Sherilyn MacGregor introduced the backgroundto the study, explaining that it was designed tofill a research gap on what immigrants from lowincome countries think about sustainability, andhow they practice sustainability in everyday life.Sherilyn explained that the study also aimed tohelp policy-makers become more aware of whatcan be learned from people who have come toManchester from contexts where they did notlive in over-consuming ways, for cultural and/oreconomic reasons. The study was conducted inMoss Side, where Somali-origin residents arecurrently the largest non-European groupaccording to the last national census.

In introducing the research, Sherilynacknowledged the invaluable role of two Somalico-researchers, Salah Abdisamad and SafiaAbdulrahman, who were unable to attend theevent due to work commitments. She explainedthat the interest in the research amongcommunity members owed a great deal to Salahand Safia’s enthusiasm for the topic, which theyboth felt had been an overlooked area in relationto Somali communities. As expressed by Salahin a comment read by Sherilyn at the event: ‘Iwas particularly looking forward to the responsethe Somali community would give to the surveyand was apprehensive if they were going to turnup! But we were not disappointed, the responsewas excellent’.

Indeed, in a short time and with a relatively smallbudget, the study has produced excellentresponses. In total, 56 Somali-origin adultresidents of Moss Side completed a duallanguage survey, and 16 respondents agreed tobe interviewed. These methods and our analysishave led to important research findings, whichhelp to debunk the myth that immigrants fromlow income countries do not know or do not careabout sustainability. These findings werepresented at the event by Catherine Walker, ablytranslated into Somali by Mr Affi, a specialiststaff member at CPS.

In sum, the research shows that:

• Although most participants were not veryfamiliar with the word 'sustainability',participants’ values and practices areconsistent with the concept of sustainability.

• Specifically, participants care about usingresources responsibly, try to teach theirchildren to value resources, and want to keeptheir neighbourhood clean.

• The main reasons why participants said theycared about these things were Islamic values,care for others, saving money and awarenessthat resources are scarce in many contexts,including Somalia.

• Participants told us that they try to continuepractices from Somalia, such as making dailyefforts to save water and electricity andcooking to portion. However, some thingsthat they used do such as sharing food withneighbours and growing food organically (or at all) are more difficult in Moss Side.

• Participants also told us how they haddeveloped new practices in Manchester. For example, whilst recycling was generallynot necessary in Somalia, in Manchesterparticipants said they try to recycle what they can.

• Most participants expressed frustrationsabout local recycling systems not being wellkept and being hard to dispose of wastesuitably. They had lots of suggestions for how the system could be improved.

The interest in the topic was seen once again atthe event as community members commentedon the findings presented (leading to a livelydiscussion about the difficulties encounteredwith rubbish collection). ‘ The event closed witha reflection by Safia Abdulrahman, one of ourco-researchers, whose words sum up thisinterest: ‘I never really knew if my parentsunderstood environmental sustainability yetthey have been practicing it all along and I failed tosee it […] I can’t express enough how many barriersthese findings will eradicate – really excited tosee what the future holds for this research.’

[email protected]@manchester.ac.uk


‘Come and let’s have tea together’:SCI researchers share findings from pioneering study of Somaliperspectives on sustainabilityCatherine Walker, Sherilyn MacGregor and Tally Katz-Gerro


The Tesco Investment Fund supportedactivities and assisted in developing andstrengthening the overall SCI agenda in theperiod May 2018 to August 2019. This supportis particularly aimed at helping to generatehigh quality grant proposals and furtheringinternational collaborations.

Applications from SCI staff members weresolicited for a range of activities directed at:

(a) Strengthening and developing existinglineages in research and ongoinginternational collaborations.

(b) Developing innovative new ideas thathave the potential to become part of theSCI contribution to academic fields andsociety in the next 5 years.

The following lists the projects that weresupported by the Fund and providesinformation about outputs and future outputs.

Title: Exploring Lost Property

Team: Helen Holmes (PI), Ulrike Ehgartner (RA)

Description: This novel and interdisciplinaryresearch project explores material loss and whatthat means for issues of sustainability. Workingwith members of the public, lost propertyoffices and cultural institutions it seeks tounderstand what it means to lose something,the value judgments which surround loss andhow a better understanding of our relationshipswith material things may enable us to tackleissues of overconsumption and accumulation.

Outputs: Nov 2018 One day public engagementevent Manchester Museum including theExploring Lost Property Pop-up Exhibition

Jan 2019 One day public engagement eventJohn Rylands Library including the ExploringLost Property Pop-up Exhibition

April 2019 Presentation at the BritishSociological Association Conference

June 2019 Invited talk at Keele UniversityBusiness School

Outputs in progress/forthcoming:

AHRC Early career standard grant ExploringMaterial Cultures of Loss

Paper in preparation

August 2019 presentation at the EuropeanSociological Association Conference

Title: Consumption Work in the Circular Economy

Team: Helen Holmes and Dan Welch (Co-Investigators), Harald Weiser (Research Assistant)

Description: Current models of CircularEconomy (CE) fall short in their understandingsof consumption and in lack of attention paid tothe domestic sphere (Mylan, Holmes andPaddock 2016). A fertile entry point to this gap isWheeler and Glucksmann’s (2015) concept of‘consumption work’ - the distinctive form oflabour ‘necessary for the purchase, use, re-useand disposal of consumption goods andservices’. The project seeks to address whatforms of consumption work are demanded bymodels of CE and what is the significance of thisfor the ambitions of CE models and visions?

Outputs: Literature Review on ConsumptionWork and Circular Economy (Harald Weiser)

Workshop 28 February/1 March 2019 attendedby the team plus Katy Wheeler (CRESI, Essex)and Kersty Hobson (Geography, Cardiff)

Outputs in progress: Wheeler and Hobson haveagreed to collaborate on a major funding bidwith Holmes and Welch – next steps is a biddevelopment workshop planned for September.An agenda setting journal paper will bedeveloped from the literature review.

Title: Endangered Practices - Maintenance and Repair

Team: Helen Holmes, Wouter Spekkink, Dan Welch(Co-Is); Ulrike Ehgartner (Research Assistant)

Description: Sustainability is often framed interms of innovation and change. Arguably,what's more important is the preservation ofsustainable everyday activities in danger ofbeing replaced by more resource-intensivealternatives. The project focuses onendangered everyday practices of mending andrecent grassroots initiatives to preserve andrevitalise such skills, such as Repair Cafés. UlrikeEhgartner has conducted 9 interviews withorganisers of Repair Cafés in the UK.

Outputs in progress: The project will serve as apilot contributing to the development of aresearch funding bid, potentially with an existingconsortium of international collaborators inFinland and Estonia, which will address a widerset of endangered practices, such as local foodpractices (foraging and preserving) and mobility(such as children walking to school). Analysis ofthe interviews will also feed into a journal paper.

Title: Building Bridges: Sustainability Educationin Brazil and Manchester

Team: Catherine Walker (SCI), Rachel Trajber(Education Director, Cemaden), Raichael Lock(Coordinator, Manchester EnvironmentalEducation Network), Alison Browne (SCI)

Description: In March 2019 the SustainableConsumption Institute hosted Rachel Trajber,education lead of the Brazilian governmentresearch institute Cemaden (National Centre forthe Monitoring and Early Warning of NaturalDisasters, Brazil) for two weeks. Rachel workedclosely with Catherine Walker, the ManchesterEnvironmental Education Network and localschools to consider the ways that unsustainableconsumption and production - historically and inthe present - can create environmental hazardsfor residents of cities. These events culminatedin an intergenerational conference attended byaround 70 primary and secondary school studentsand teachers, along with environmentalresearchers, activists and members of theGreater Manchester Fire Service.

Outputs: Intergenerational conference,attended by around 80 people in total, twointernal seminars at SCI, SCI blog, twoestablished research partnerships with a localand an international organisation working inareas of interest to the Global ChallengesResearch Fund Outputs in progress:

- Small-scale data collection in a local schoolthat presented at the intergenerationalconference

- Submitted abstract with local school to present at an event celebrating 30 years of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at UCL Institute of Education in November

Title: The Cultural Politics of HouseholdSustainability

Team: Sherilyn MacGregor, Tally Katz-Gerro,Catherine Walker, Salah Abdisamad, SafiaAbdulrahman

Description: Pilot study conducted from Augustto October 2018 by researchers from theSustainable Consumption Institute at theUniversity of Manchester, and Somalicommunity researchers. The main aims of thisresearch were to find out about theenvironmental concerns of Somali-originresidents of Moss Side, a ward within the City of


Projects funded by the Research andInternationalisation Fund 2018/19


Manchester, and to explore how culturalperceptions, values, practices and relationsxshape pro-environmental environmentally-friendly household practices among diverse city residents.

Outputs: New survey and interview data,findings from research presented at internalseminar at SCI, British Sociological AssociationAnnual Conference 2019, Nordic Geographers'Meeting 2019 and an invited seminar at UCLInstitute of Education, journal article submitted,community engagement event held in a localschool and attended by around 20 Somalicommunity members, a local councillor andrepresentatives from the local mosque and theSomali Adult Social Care Agency

Outputs in progress: Report for policy-makers(English/Somali), Abstracts accepted to presenton research at European SociologicalAssociation Conference 2019 and RoyalGeographical Association Annual Conference2019.

Title: The Intergenerational Transmission ofEnvironmental Behaviours

Team: Tally Katz-Gerro

Description: Two collaborators on aninternational project, Dr Itay Greenspan fromthe Hebrew University and Prof Femida Handyfrom the University of Pennsylvania, spent oneweek at the SCI in February 2019. Our projecttitled “A Cross-National Analysis of theIntergenerational Transmission ofenvironmental Habitus,” is based on datacollection conducted in 2016-2018, whichincluded three nationally representative surveysin South Korea, Israel, and the US, and groupinterviews in the same countries. During thevisit we engaged in an intensive write up of theresults for two papers and met with the SocialInequalities and Sustainable Householdsworking group who also study households anddaily practices.

Outputs: Findings from research presented atinternal seminar at SCI, International visitors:Femida Handy and Itay Greenspan, Journalarticle submitted.

Outputs in progress: Two journal articles inpreparation.

Title: Social Movements, Everyday Life and thePolitics of Sustainable Consumption

Team: Luke Yates, Simin Fadaee, Kevin Gillan,Sherilyn MacGregor

Description: We are interested in how economicactivity has become increasingly moralised inand outside of academic work, often with ideasabout sustainability popularly invoked indiscussion of ‘alternative’ commodity chains,products and modes/means of provisioning.We’re also interested in exploring the politics ofeveryday activity beyond the ‘usual suspects’and the usual contexts, thinking about the formsof collective action, civic initiatives, subculturesand practices (e.g. Bayat 2009) where politicalactivity intersects with ordinary life. Much hasbeen written in these areas, but we want tounpack some of the assumptions and maketheoretical and inter-disciplinary connections toadvance and inform future research. Thepurpose of these events is to explore ideas forcutting edge new research, and perhaps tofoster new collaborations.

Outputs: Two workshops of 1.5 days each.

Outputs in progress: Shared writing projects (as yet not finalised).

Title: The coordination of grassroots innovationnetworks: a pilot study

Team: Wouter Spekkink (Principal Investigator),Malte Rödl (Research Assistant), Martin Charter(External Advisor)

Description: For this project we conductedsmall surveys among two grassroots innovationnetworks, which are the Repair Café network, andthe Precious Plastic network. A distinguishingfeature of these networks is their 'franchise-like'structure, where individual initiatives areexplicitly recognised as being part of thenetwork, and where some form of 'coordinatingbody' exists, such as the Repair CaféInternational Foundation and the PreciousPlastic team. Through our surveys we map whenand how initiatives that constitute the networkswere started, and we explore their diversity interms of both their organisational setup andtheir activities. We also explore how theinitiatives in the networks relate to each other,to the coordinating bodies of the movements,and to organisations outside their movement.Finally, we examine what visions there exist inthe movements about their future.

Outputs: The results of the surveys will be usedas basis for one academic publication, as well aspublicly available reports for the Repair Cafénetwork and the Precious Plastic network.Anonymised versions of the data will be sharedwith the networks as well. Finally, the results ofthe survey will be used as a basis for a proposalfor further research on the topic of franchise-like grassroots networks.

Title: Decentralised energy and ‘smart cities’

Team: Julia Kasmire

Outputs: International visit (Andrew Bollinger),SCI seminar, this collaboration has become thebasis for a Presidential Fellowship application,international visit (J. Kasmire to Zurich).

Title: Agent-based modelling for transitiontowards the circular economy

Team: Julia Kasmire

Outputs: International visitors (Igor Nikolic,Jaco Quist), SCI seminar, this collaboration hasbecome the basis for a Instagram Research Fundapplication, the topics were presented (by J. Kasmire) at the SAMS workshop onResponsible Innovation.

Title: Urban platforms: corporate or civic digitaltransformation?

Team: Mike Hodson and Andy McMeekin

Description: This project supports researchvisits to Toronto and London, in 2018-2019. Theaim of the visits is to undertake fieldwork ondigital platforms in two different urban contexts.Digital platform development in Toronto byGoogle represents a corporate view of thefuture of the city, transformed by digitalplatforms. By contrast, in London, work byTransport for London appears to suggestattempts to build a more civic understanding ofthe role of urban platforms in transforming thecity. The focus on digital platforms matters ascontemporary cities and processes ofproduction and consumption are beingtransformed through new digital infrastructures.Who is governing these processes, for whatpurpose and with what effects are critical issues.This work contributes an innovative new idea inthe context of the SCI’s developing agenda oncities and (post-)sustainability.

Outputs: Hodson, M., and McMeekin, A.,(journal article under development) ‘If someonewould just give us a city and put us in charge’:experimenting with systemic digital platformsas new urban infrastructures of control,(potentially for) Environment and Planning A.

Invited talk, Hodson, M., and McMeekin, A.,(2019) ‘If someone would just give us a city andput us in charge’: experimenting with systemicdigital platforms as new urban infrastructures ofcontrol, Centre for Regional and EconomicResearch invited seminar, Sheffield HallamUniversity, 15th May.

Research Funding, Hodson, M., and McMeekin,A., Open Research Area (to be submittedSeptember 2019), with collaborators in Torontoand Toulouse, as PI.

Hodson, M., and McMeekin, A., ‘Is there a role fordigital platforms in achieving urban sustainablemobility?’ AMBS Doctoral student – AwardedJanuary 2019.

Hodson, M., Boons, F., and McMeekin, A., (2018)Innovating urban ecologies of business models:the role of digital platforms, AMBS ResearchSupport Fund, £8,638.20. To support strategicproject collaboration with Lund University.Awarded November 2018.

Kevin Ward (University of Manchester), TheresaEnright (University of Toronto), Michael Hodson(University of Manchester), Hamil Pearsall(Temple University), Jonathan Silver (Universityof Sheffield) and Alan Wiig (University ofMassachusetts, Boston), ‘Infrastructural futuresacross cities of the global north’, application toUrban Studies Foundation Seminar Series,£19,516. Awarded November 2018.

International workshop

We organised, with colleagues in the SCI andManchester Urban Institute, an internationalworkshop, ‘Urban platforms and the future city:Transformations in infrastructure, governance,knowledge, and everyday life’, between 28February – 1 March (see p.10). The focus of theworkshop was on the role of urban platforms inthe production of new ways of understandingand shaping urban futures, and how moredemocratic configurations of platform urbanismmight be possible. The workshop broughttogether leading scholars from across the globe– including from India, Australia, the US, Canadaand various European countries - for a focusedset of paper sessions organised around fourcore themes: infrastructure, governance,knowledge, and everyday life. The workshop was organised by the SCI’s Mike Hodson, Julia Kasmire, Andy McMeekin and John Stehlin,alongside MUI’s Kevin Ward and involvedcontributions from SCI Fellows Richard Heeksand James Evans.

[email protected]




a) What do you research?

My work examines questions of representation,inclusion and power within “sustainability”scholarship and movements, primarily withinand from Indian cities. Sustainability researchersand proponents have to be very attentive tothese questions, given the exclusive andexclusionary histories of elite-led environmentalmovements. In a recent publication, I call onresearchers in the field of sustainableconsumption to pay more attention to theconditions of oppression that makeunsustainable consumption possible andnormal, and to examine the ways in whichsustainability initiatives reproduce or dismantleraced, classed and gendered oppression.

b) You were talking earlier about Berkeleystudents responding to the whiteness of theUS environment movement – could you recapon that?

The Students of Color Environmental Collectivecreated an amazing campaign and wrote a letterspeaking to the environmental research andteaching community at UC Berkeley (where I gotmy PhD), calling out the “whiteness” thatpervades the movement and articulating a setof demands around fore-fronting questions ofracial justice in the environmental movement.You can read the letter here:https://serc.berkeley.. A recap of the campaignhere: https://emalis6.wixsite.

c) your thoughts on the current state of theenvironment/climate justice movements (inwhich ever countries you choose to answer?

I’m going to reflect on the movement in Geneva,where I am based right now. When I am at someof the climate protests and saw signs about“protecting the future of our kids andgrandkids”, I always want to ask the sign-holders, who is the “our” here? I sincerely hopethat they are thinking about the kids andgrandkids in India and other parts of the majorityworld, where climate change will compoundalready existing suffering in terrible ways. I thinkthe environmental/climate justice movementshould not assume that inclusion is implicit or“given”, but rather activists should make explicit

their commitments to thinking beyond theirimmediate communities. This also involvesbeing very attentive to history and educatingoneself on the histories of imperialism and itscontemporary manifestations.

d) what do you think Minority World/Westernactivists could or should learn from strugglesin the majority world?

I don’t feel like I am equipped to answer thisquestion, but I believe that movements shouldbe lead by those most oppressed by thesituation. This doesn’t mean responsibilizing thepeople of the majority word or indigenouspeople or people of color to fix the problem, butrather being willing to listen and be in solidarity.We (people like me, elites) have to practicehumility. Solidarity for me is about struggle andradical love, and this is something that liberatoryactivists in the majority world have longemphasized.

[email protected]

Interview with ManishaAnantharaman about #climate#justice #intersectionalityA short interview with Associate Professor ManishaAnantharaman, keynote speaker at the SCI sponsoredHealthy Cities 2019 conference.



Across a two week visit in April and May 2019 Dr Manisha Anantharaman (Assistant Professorin Justice, Community and Leadership at Saint Mary’s College, California) visited theSustainable Consumption Institute toparticipate in exchanges and discussions with our research staff at the SCI, as well asdelivering a SCI sponsored keynote lecture at Healthy Cities 2019. This visit was hosted by Dr Alison Browne (Senior Lecturer, HumanGeography, SCI), alongside the SCI researcher,early career and PhD research community.

Manisha’s work examines questions ofrepresentation, inclusion and power within“sustainability” scholarship and movements,primarily within and from Indian cities.Sustainability researchers and proponents haveto be very attentive to these questions, giventhe exclusive and exclusionary histories of elite-led environmental movements. RecentlyManisha published a paper entitled “Criticalsustainable consumption: A research agenda” which has been of substantialinterest to colleagues within the SustainableConsumption Institute and across sustainableconsumption and production research andpolicy communities.

It was this paper that Manisha presented as theSCI sponsored keynote speech to the HealthyCities 2019 Conference. The Healthy Citiesconference, hosted by Dr Deljana Iossifova(Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies University ofManchester) and Dr Alison Browne, focused onresearch and policy approaches that placeeveryday life at the centre of accounts on urban,infrastructural and environmentaltransformations. Manisha presented alongsideother eminent keynote presenters such as ProfClara Greed (Emerita Professor of inclusiveUrban Planning, University of the West ofEngland), Professor Nikolas Rose (Prof ofSociology, Department of Global Health andSocial Medicine, King’s College London), ProfMichael Keith (Director of the Centre onMigration, Policy and Society at the University ofOxford, and co-ordinator of the ESRC UrbanTransformations portfolio) and Prof Diane Mitlin(Director, Global Development Institute, Prof ofGlobal Urbanism, The University of Manchester).

On the 30th April Manisha also took part in anSCI ‘open space’ workshop where we cametogether as an SCI community to discuss thesignificance and importance of engaging withcritical sustainable consumption perspectiveswithin the Institutes research, writing and policy

work. During this session we discussedquestions such as “What does it mean to adopt acritical perspective to sustainable consumption(and production) in our own work?”, “What is thesignificance of looking at relational and structuralpower within sustainable consumption researchand policy?”, and “What would it mean to‘decolonise’ or create ‘anticolonial’ sustainableconsumption and production scholarship, theory,empirical research, methods and scholarly praxisincluding teaching?”. Throughout the visit these discussions continued with Manishaparticipating in Shut Up and Write sessions with the Society Environment Research Group(Geography) and SCI colleagues, as well asmaking space for writing on collaborativeprojects between Dr Ali Browne (Manchester),Dr Manisha Anantharaman (St Mary’s) and Tullia Jack (Lund).

Manisha will also feature in the new large MOOCstyle University College of InterdisciplinaryLearning (UCIL) course “Creating a sustainableworld: 21st century challenges and thesustainable development goals”. This course willbe available to students from the 2019/20academic year, and Manisha’s reflections oncritical approaches will be included in module onResponsible Consumption and Production (SDGGoal 12) led by Dr Alison Browne & Cecilia AldaVidal (both in the SCI and Geography).

About Dr Manisha Anantharaman: Manishareceived her PhD from the Department ofEnvironmental Science Policy and Managementat the University of California, Berkeley in 2015.She is a founding member of the GlobalResearch Forum on Sustainable Consumptionand Production. In Spring 2019 she was also theAlba Viotto Visiting Professor in Sociology at theUniversity of Geneva.

Healthy Cities 2019 was generously supportedby the Hallsworth Conference Fund, SustainableConsumption Institute, and the ConfuciusInstitute at The University of Manchester;Complexity Planning and Urbanism at theManchester School of Architecture; and BeijingNormal University.

[email protected]

Manisha Anantharaman

Dr Manisha Anantharaman Keynote Presentation at Healthy Cities 2019

Healthy Cities Discussion Session



In March 2019 the Sustainable ConsumptionInstitute held a series of activities aroundsustainability education. The SCI hostedRachel Trajber, education lead of the Braziliangovernment research institute Cemaden(National Monitoring and Early Warning andCentre of Natural Disasters) and used Rachel’svisit to build bridges with the ManchesterEnvironmental Education Network.

Rachel’s visit was initiated by SCI ResearchAssociate Catherine Walker and builds on aseries of international research interactionsaround Education for Sustainability (EfS),described by Rachel, Catherine and others in anarticle for a recent special issue of Action Researchjournal on Climate Change Transformations.

In the special issue, Rachel, Catherine and co-authors call for researchers to ‘create conditionsfor public educational policies – and educators –to become part of strategies for realisingtransformations for sustainability and resiliencein the face of climate change, disaster[s] andresource insecurity.’ At just such a time wheninternational youth climate activism is raisingcritical questions, Rachel’s visit enabled SCIresearchers to engage our research onun/sustainable consumption with EfS, as aresearch area in its own right and a means ofdisseminating research.

From the outset, Rachel’s visit was envisaged asan opportunity for the SCI to build bridges withand between Cemaden Education’s Network ofSchools and Communities for Disaster RiskPrevention and the Manchester EnvironmentalEducation Network (MEEN). The work of bothorganisations - in geographically-distantcontexts and in response to differingmanifestations of socioenvironmentalvulnerabilities – is consistent with the action-oriented transformations approach set out bythe editors of Action Research. CemadenEducation’s work aims to contribute to moresustainable and resilient societies by buildingcurriculum skills and research competencies inschools. The team has equipped schools tobecome micro-risk monitoring and prevention

centres in regions where increasinglyunpredictable weather is resulting in floodingand landslides. Much of MEEN’s recent work hascentred on working with pupils to research theirschool’s soil quality, which often revealscontamination and impoverishment. Heavyrains, which experts predict will be one outcomeof climate change, could expose impoverishedsoils and this is one reason why MEEN issimultaneously delivering a social action projecton climate change through intergenerationalcarbon classrooms.

Cemaden and MEEN share an understanding ofclimate-related hazards as socio-environmental,requiring responses ‘from top down and bottomup, involving multiple stakeholders in dialogueand collaboration at every stage of the process’,as argued by Rachel Trajber and colleagues. ForMEEN this works as a three-stage process:learn, act, share. Both organisations seek tocultivate spaces for intergenerational learning:taking young people’s concerns and knowledgeseriously without making them solelyresponsible for action, as MEEN CoordinatorRaichael Lock writes with Susan Brown.

Having called the collaboration between the SCI, Cemaden and MEEN ‘Building Bridges’, wereflect on the bridges built and those remainingto be built through a series of questions thathave grown out of our work together.

‘Do people in Brazil have climate change likewe have climate change?’

This question, raised by a pupil at a primaryschool where we planted trees to offset Rachel’sflights, sums up the enquiry at the heart of ourcollaboration. Rachel responded that we(humanity) are in the same boat, but on differentparts of the boat, some of which are morevulnerable than others.

This is being illustrated through the socialcartography work that we are undertaking withschools in Manchester, Santarém (Pará, Brazil)and São José dos Campos (São Paulo, Brazil).Students are mapping hazards, areas of risk andvulnerable populations onto aerial maps of theareas around their schools. They are creating

overlays on these maps to show alternativescenarios: one overlay showing the risks thatcould be heightened by climate change, anothershowing ways that the communities canbecome more resilient to climate risks. Thethree schools are in dialogue about similaritiesand differences in risks and potential responsesthat the mapping is helping them to see.

At an intergenerational conference on climatechange, risk and resilience on 22 March 2019,students from all three schools presented (liveor through a video-link up) their work-in-progress and discussed some of these emergingsimilarities and differences.

Is the city a context for deliberation or a sitethat innovation gets done to?

This question, part of a series of questionsorienting the SCI’s Cities and(Post)Sustainability working group, provided aplatform to discuss with the working group theways that young people are frequently affectedby city innovations – for good or ill – yet aremuch less frequently consulted on theseinnovations. Recently, there have beenproposals to build schools in GreaterManchester and elsewhere on reclaimed land(which, as former waste collection or industrialsites, may contain harmful contaminants). It isworth considering what suggestions youngpeople - who will spend the most time in these‘sites of innovation’ – might make if they wereconsulted in a meaningful way on such plans.

Our social cartography work offers one way tobuild bridges between classrooms and decision-making spaces. Our aim is that, in addition tobuilding bridges between young people indifferent geographical contexts, the work willprompt schools to contact local politicians,community groups and researchers to proposeactions for more resilient communities. Studentsocial cartographers at the Manchester schoolare keen to show their work to MP Afzal Khan,and to tweet photos of their map, overlays andaction plan to the Mayor of Greater Manchester,Andy Burnham.

Education for sustainability, action-oriented research and the value of building bridges



Nonetheless, events such as the young people’splatform at the Manchester Mayor’s GreenSummit and the Strike for Climate – both ofwhich happened during Rachel’s visit – suggestthat it is when young people go outside ofschool that they have the greatest impact. Asadults at these youth-led events, we were onthe receiving end of a bridge extended by youngpeople, a rallying call to action, much of whichmust be led by adults as young people’s poemsfrom the strike make clear.

Is it enough to learn together? How do webuild together?

In institutional terms, our collaboration bridgesan academic institution (SCI), a governmentresearch institution (Cemaden) and a non-governmental institution (MEEN). As individualswe have different ways of positioning ourselvesas researchers, activists and practitioners andhow we see ourselves depends on the contextsin which we work. Our work together and therange of activities carried out (seminars withacademics, tree planting and assemblies inschools, supporting after-school eco-clubs,hosting an intergenerational conference,participating in a climate strike, attending apolicy summit) have perhaps blurred boundariesas much as they have built bridges.

As those privileged with the vocation of workingwith knowledge, our responsibility to bridgeresearch, action and practice takes on a newurgency at a time of climate crisis. As the authorsof the Action Research editorial calling for action-oriented research for transformations write, ‘thetimes demand it’. Our collaboration enables usto think together about how we build criticalunderstandings and responses to the climatecrisis with those who are not only the subjectsof our research but also fellow (global)community members.

Catherine Walker is a Research Associate at the Sustainable Consumption Institute.

Rachel Trajber leads the education work of the Brazilian government research instituteCemaden (National Monitoring and EarlyWarning and Centre of Natural Disasters).

Raichael Lock is the co-ordinator of theManchester Environmental Education Network.

Further reading

Trajber, R., Walker, C. et al. (2019) “Promotingclimate change transformation with youngpeople in Brazil: participatory action researchthrough a looping approach” Action ResearchVolume: 17 issue: 1, page(s): 87-107https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750319829202.

[email protected]

A two day workshop (28 February and 1 March2019) was held at the SCI to examine the placeof consumption in models and visions of theCircular Economy. In 2015 the EuropeanCommission reframed its commitments tosustainable consumption and productionlargely in terms of the Circular Economy,centred on moving away from the current,linear economy of “make, use, dispose”, andclosing “material loops” through innovations in production, provision and consumption.However, current models of Circular Economyfall short in their understandings ofconsumption and in lack of attention paid tothe domestic sphere, where so muchconsumption takes place. A fertile entry pointto this gap is Miriam Glucksmann and KatyWheeler’s concept of “consumption work” –the distinctive form of labour “necessary forthe purchase, use, re-use and disposal ofconsumption goods and services” (Wheelerand Glucksmann 2015: 37). Models and visionsof the Circular Economy commonly assumemore arduous or engaged forms ofconsumption work in order to complete“material loops” between production andconsumption, often with limitedunderstanding of how these significant

changes in consumption practices will bedefused and normalised.

The workshop – the first of two – was fundedby the SCI as part of a scoping project to laythe groundwork for agenda setting researchinto the role of consumption work in theCircular Economy, led by the SCI’s HelenHolmes (Research Fellow, Sociology) and Dan Welch (Lecturer, Sociology). As part of theproject, SCI doctoral researcher Harald Weiserproduced an extensive literature review whichformed the basis for discussion at theworkshop. Helen, Dan and Harald were joinedby Katy Wheeler (Co-director, Centre forEconomic Sociology and Innovation, Universityof Essex), and Kersty Hobson (Senior Lecturerin Human Geography, Cardiff University), aswell as the SCI’s Tally Katz-Gero (Sociology),Wouter Spekkink (AMBS) and SherilynMacGregor (Politics). Following the success ofthe workshop, Katy and Kersty will be returningto the SCI in September for a follow onworkshop, with the goal of developing a majorresearch project on ‘Consumption work in theCircular Economy’.

[email protected]

Congratulations to Frank Geels, Professor of System Innovation and Sustainability, who has been named as one of The Universityof Manchester’s researchers of the year for his outstanding performance and significant contribution.

He received the award at the University's 2019Distinguished Achievement Awards. Thecriteria against which nominations are judgedstate that the nominee should be "someonewhose most recent research has successfullychallenged dogma, created a new field ofresearch, elucidated a new paradigm, made afundamental change in thinking, or impactedsignificantly on society".

Professor Geels was described as havingdemonstrated himself to be a "transformativeintellectual", being the chief proponent of theso-called 'socio-technical transition theory'which covers large scale system changes inenergy, food and transport that involve technical,socio-economic, political and cultural processes.

As his citation remarked: "His work is highlycited and his research has generated broadimpact to the academic community and society.His reach is clearly truly global."

Commenting on his award he said: "I am trulyhonoured to receive this award and see my workpraised in this way. Changing energy, mobilityand agro-food systems in sustainable, low-carbon directions is one of today's grandchallenges, and to bring my work to theattention of a wider audience and topolicymakers is extremely important to me."

Workshop on‘Consumption Work inthe Circular Economy’

Frank GeelsResearcherof the Year


From the 28 February to 1 March, theSustainable Consumption Institute, withsupport from the Manchester Urban Instituteand the University of Lund, hosted aninternational workshop entitled, Urbanplatforms and the future city, organised byMichael Hodson, Julia Kasmire, AndrewMcMeekin, John Stehlin, and Kevin Ward, withessential support from Katrina Farrugia. Theworkshop brought in seventeen participantsfrom institutions in six countries (UK, US, CA,NL, IN, and AU), working in field sites acrossLatin America, East and South Asia, Africa, andthe North Atlantic, to discuss and debate theemerging phenomenon of platform urbanism, a term coined by Sarah Barns and others todescribe the co-constitution of digital platformsand urban space.

The goals of the workshop were twofold. First,we wanted to stimulate a set of conversationsaround the urbanisation of platform capitalism,bringing in both key thinkers and early-careerresearchers in the fields of digital geographies,media studies, innovation studies, and urbanplanning. Our second goal was to feed into theemerging work programme on digitaltransformations and urbanisation within theSCI, focusing specifically on urban platforms,and in concrete terms to produce an editedvolume of workshop papers informed by theconversations that occurred there.

Based on their current research, we recruitedparticipants according to four main themes –infrastructure, governance, knowledge, andeveryday life – and requested shortpresentations on these themes. At the sametime, a core aim of the workshop was also tostage a conversation about the varyingmeanings of “platform urbanism” itself. Withthis in mind, we opened the workshop with amore informal roundtable featuring a participantfrom each subsequent paper session, with theprompt of “What does platform urbanism meanin your own research?” This moreconversational opening set a convivial tone thatstimulated more wide-ranging discussions,fostered by ample coffee breaks, over thecourse of the two days.

At the core of these discussions was therelationship between the platform – a mode ofdigital intermediation of economic activity,political debate, and social interaction that is

powered by rent-seeking and market capture –and urbanisation – a mode of constructinghuman environments driven by the conversionof space into property. This overarchingquestion manifested across a number ofdifferent discussions.

The infrastructure session posed both the waysin which digital platforms form a new kind ofinfrastructural overlay, based on the capture ofdata, onto existing urban spaces, such as theSouth Lake Union district of Seattle whereAmazon is headquartered, profiled by DillonMahmoudi. At the same time, they highlightedthe disjunctures of how these infrastructuresconnect, and the “glitches,” as AgnieszkaLeszczynski put it, that have becomeincreasingly endemic to the platformised city.

The governance session stressed how thelargely private ownership of platforms means ashift toward proprietary interfaces to access thedata required to govern, whether this is data ona user’s location, consumption patterns, orpolitical discourse. Simultaneously, with thecoming move to 5G networks and blockchain,the collection of information has become morehorizontal and distributed. Clancy Wilmottargued that this raised the importance ofproximity rather than Cartesian location, and“ambient participation,” in Maroš Krivý’s words,rather than top-down hierarchical ordering. Thisintroduces new quandaries regarding processesof biopolitical government. Theseconversations continued more informallythrough a guided tour of Manchester’s industrialhistory and the curry dinner that followed.

Day two deepened these themes, beginningwith a session on how platformisation haschanged how urban knowledge is organised,and, for Richard Heeks, how “data justice” mightbe enacted. One key issue cutting across thesepapers was the role of data – how it is gathered,who controls it, and how it is used – as a field of (asymmetrical) political struggle in whichlarge corporate actors like Airbnb, which David Wachsmuth analyzed, the local state,discussed by Scott Rodgers and Susan Moore,and “bottom-up” actors like informal settlementdwellers, in Andrés Luque Ayala’s work, are engaged.

The final session examined how these issuesmaterialised in everyday life and labour, amongboth platform users and platform workers. Herethe paradoxes of platformisation becameapparent, as they generate new (and sometimesmore inclusive) forms of sociality, such as in theWeChat “super app” profiled by Yujie Chen,political participation, and economicopportunity, for instance among women Uberdrivers in India previously excluded from taxiwork, as Anurag Mazumdar discussed. But thisstill occurs within a platform architecture thatprojects these forms of sociality into a futurethat is disembedded from present attachmentslike polity, community, and kinship. The secondday concluded with a light lunch and excitementabout upcoming collaborations.

We are currently in the internal peer reviewstage of an edited collection for Routledgecontaining a number of contributions fromworkshop participants, and edited by membersof the SCI, the MUI, and the Department ofGeography. Along this same direction of work,Mike Hodson and Andy McMeekin are finalizingtwo major funding proposals to support a three-year programme of work building both onconversations and collaborations fostered bythe workshop. More broadly, the workshopcontributed to raising the SCI’s profile inscholarship at the intersection of digitaltransformation and urbanisation, two importantthreads of the SCI’s future research agenda.

We would like to conclude with a final note oninclusion. In designing the workshop, we wereexplicit about working toward improving genderbalance and ethnic, racial, geographic, andcareer-stage diversity. We feel we wererelatively successful in terms of gender balanceand career-stage diversity, and less so in ourother diversity goals. Nevertheless, severalconference participants noted the positiveimpact of our efforts, which shows that suchclear, intentional pursuits yield an improvedworkshop experience, while also highlightingthe need to consistently work toward moreinclusive scholarly spaces.

[email protected]@manchester.ac.uk


Urban platforms and the future city workshop



Last year SCI researcher Dan Welch (Lecturer inSociology) won a £300,000 funding award fromthe Economic and Social Research Council toconduct a two-year project on “ImaginedFutures of Consumption”. The project – runninguntil September 2020 – explores how the futureof the consumption of goods and services isimagined by both the general public and byexperts, such as professional practitioners offorecasting or ‘futures’ techniques.

The project’s starting point is thatrepresentations and expectations of the futureplay a critical role in the present. Imaginedfutures can come to serve as visions guidingpublic or corporate policy, channelling fundingand influencing technological design, or canmotivate political activists and orient socialmovements. Visions of collective futuresembody expectations of future states,pragmatic beliefs about the way the worldworks, and beliefs about the nature of ‘thecommon good’. Imagined futures ofconsumption have played an important rolepolitically and economically since the end of theSecond World War in the form of the promise of‘prosperity for all’ realised through massconsumption in the consumer society. Morerecently, imagined futures of sustainableconsumption have been promoted by socialmovements, NGOs, think tanks, corporationsand public bodies.

Today, in the wake of the financial crisis and inthe context of climate change, the centralpromises of twentieth century consumersociety – of prosperity for all and ever risingliving standards – have been fundamentallychallenged. With the loss of faith in onedominant imagined future of consumption,cultural and political space has been opened upfor competing imagined futures ofconsumption. It is within this social and political-economic context that the project will explorehow such futures shape, and are shaped by,social processes.

Dan Welch is working on the project with UlrikeEhgartner as Research Associate. Ulrike wasawarded her PhD with the SCI earlier this year(see page 2). In the current, first phase of theproject Dan and Ulrike are analysing data onindividuals’ expectations and imagination aboutthe future of consumption – their own, that offuture generations, and of society as a whole.

This data has been collectedthrough collaborating with theMass Observation Archive(MOA) based at the Universityof Sussex. In December 2018the MOA sent out a ‘directive’on ‘The Future of Consumption’to its panel of 400 volunteers.MOA ‘directives’ consist ofquestions and promptsconcerning an area of researchthat elicit written responsesfrom the volunteers. The dataprovides rich reflections fromvolunteers on everything fromthe future of the high street, tofuture environmentalconstraints on consumption, toexpectations of the nextgeneration’s living standards, tothe future of food and fears andhopes around how Brexit willimpact everyday consumption.Ulrike presented on this work inprogress at the EuropeanSociological Association’sConference in Manchester (21 August 2019). Dan andUlrike will then present the finalresults of the analysis at theThird International Conferenceon Anticipation, in Oslo in October 2019.

In the second phase of the project Dan andUlrike intend to work alongside professional‘futures’ practitioners, to explore how thinktanks, corporations and futures consultanciesproduce and circulate visions and models of thefuture of consumption. In preparation for thiswork, Ulrike has recently undertaken anintensive week long training course on “Futuringfor Sustainability” at the Urban Futures Studio,University of Utrecht, learning ‘futures’techniques such as scenario building andbackcasting.

Dan has presented on the ideas behind theproject to the European SociologicalAssociation’s Consumption Networkconference in Copenhagen last August, andearlier this year was invited to present on theproject to the Consumption, Culture andCommunication group at the University of

Southern Denmark, Odense, and to theUniversity of Bristol’s School of Economics,Finance and Management. Dan has also teamedup with project advisor Prof Giuliana Mandich,an expert in sociology of the future at CagliariUniversity in Sardinia, to organise a ResearchStream at the European Sociological Association’s2019 Conference on ‘Practicing the Future’. TheResearch Stream received the highest number ofabstract submissions of any of the conferenceResearch Streams, and saw 24 papers presentedover six panels.

Phase two of the project promises knowledgeexchange workshops with professional futurists,public engagement through an exhibition and aninternational academic workshop on thesociology of the future.

[email protected]

Imagined futures of consumption

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Sacha Manik is a PhD fellow at the Centre forHealth Promotion Research, Roskilde University,Denmark, where she has been affiliated to thePhD program “Health and Society” sinceDecember 2017. Sacha’s research is exploringthe challenges people face in the process ofchange towards a sustainable diet with low or nomeat, seen in a sociological and critical foodconsumption perspective. Sacha is visitingManchester University for three months as partof her PhD education with the purpose ofenhancing her qualifications as a food consumptionresearcher. Her aim is also to get acquaintedwith the research environment at the SCI, aswell as to create a network with likemindedresearchers. Dr. Alan Warde will be Sacha’ssupervisor during her visit at the institute.

Filippo Oncini (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology and Social Research,University of Trento. His research interests lie in the fields of consumption, health and culturalsociology, with attention to social stratification dynamics, food inequalities and urban poverty. He iscurrently working on project PLATEFORMS, which aims to produce in-depth knowledge on how foodpractices are affected by innovations in food provisioning. From October he will be joining theSustainable Consumption Institute for two years as a Marie Curie fellow with a mixed method projecton food poverty and food bank use in Greater Manchester.


Prof Alan Warde was awarded this year’s BritishSociological Association’s DistinguishedService to British Sociology award.

Prof Warde, was given the award by thePresident of the BSA, Prof Susan Halford, at itsannual conference in Glasgow in April 2019.

Prof Halford said Prof Warde’s contribution tosociology “stretched across all areas ofacademic endeavour” including an “increasinglypowerful analysis of consumption andenvironmental change.”

Also, she said, “Alan has been generous with histime and his ideas to the people he works with.”

Prof Warde said he was “honoured, surprisedand pleased” to receive the award.

Alan Warde Save the date: SCI Festival December 5, 2019

Visitors

The Sustainable Consumption Institute will hold a half-day event to celebrate over adecade of cutting edge research and to launch a new research agenda for our new phase asan institute. The theme is 'Materialising sustainabilities, reimagining futures', which capturesour aims to both deepen and extend our thinking about the urgent socio-technical andpolitical challenges of our time. The event will involve a series of short talks about ideas,practices, strategies and innovations for changing dominant modes of provision andmoving towards more sustainable societies. The speakers will include academics workingin the SCI and high profile guests drawn from policy, enterprise and activist sectors.Confirmed external speakers include: Corin Bell (Lead, Plastic Free Greater Manchester andDirector of Open Kitchen MCR), Euan Mills (Head of Digital Planning at Connected PlacesCatapult), Martine Postma (Founder of the Repair Café Movement) and Magid Magid(former Lord Mayor of Sheffield and Green Member of European Parliament). Their talks willbe pitched to an interested lay audience and designed to provoke discussion and debate.The event will be followed by a wine reception.

[email protected]

SCI, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKwww.sci.manchester.ac.uk@ManchesterSCI


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