RESOLVE

Where are you based and what kind of organisation are you?

Resolve is based at the University of Surrey, Guildford and is an academic research group.

What is your broad area of expertise?

Sustainable consumption and production; socio-cultural aspects of lifestyles; psychological factors that shape consumer choices in relation to energy consumption; energy-economic accounting and energy lifestyle mapping; energy policy and governance; community based carbon reduction.

Give a range of the projects you are you currently working on:

Our inter-disciplinary research programme is arranged around six thematic research strands:

Carbon Footprinting: developing the tools to find out which bits of people's lifestyles and practices generate how much energy consumption (and carbon emissions).

Psychology of Energy Behaviours: concentrating on the social psychological influences on energy-related behaviours, including the role of identity, and testing interventions aimed at change.

Sociology of Lifestyles: focusing on the sociological aspects of lifestyles and the possibilities of lifestyle change, exploring the role of values and the creation and maintenance of meaning.

Household change over time: working with individual households to understand how they respond to the demands of climate change and negotiate new, low-carbon lifestyles and practices.

Lifestyle Scenarios: exploring the potential for reducing the energy consumption (and carbon emissions) associated with a variety of lifestyle scenarios over the next two to three decades.

Energy/Carbon Governance: reviewing the implications of a low carbon society for governance, and investigating, in particular, the role of community in stimulating long-term lifestyle change.

What aspect of your work with relevance to the food-climate change issue would you like to feature?  

Our carbon footprinting team is focusing on the development and application of a robust and pragmatic carbon and energy accounting framework capable of mapping both socio-economic and energy/carbon dimensions of people's lifestyles. The aim of this framework is to understand the empirical links between people's consumption patterns and their energy use and carbon emissions. Such an understanding is seen as important both to identify where the heaviest energy/carbon impacts lie and as the basis for setting policies to manage the transition to sustainable energy lifestyles. For this transition to be managed in a fashion which is equitable and efficient with the minimal disruption to people's lives, policy makers need to know:

• how much energy (carbon) is attributable to specific functional consumer categories(housing, transport, food, leisure, clothing etc)?
• how have energy demands (and carbon impacts) changed over time, and what is the relative contribution to these historical trends from technology, economic structure, price, income and so on?
• what are the regional and trade implications of the direct and indirect demand for energy?
• what is the relative contribution to energy demand from different socio-economic, demographic, or geographical groups or lifestyle 'clusters'?
• how might the level and structure of these demands change in the future?

Please describe the work in more detail - how it started, what stage it is at, who has/have been involved and their different roles.

The Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and the Environment (RESOLVE) was  established in May 2006 and is funded by the ESRC for five years under the research council's energy programme. The m ain aim of RESOLVE is  to unravel the complex links between lifestyles, values and the environment, providing robust, evidence-based advice to policy-makers in the UK and elsewhere who are seeking to understand and to influence the behaviours and practices of 'energy consumers'.

The interdisciplinary nature of RESOLVE is one of our core strengths: involving four internationally acclaimed departments in the University: the Centre for Environmental Strategy, the Surrey Energy Economics Centre, the Environmental Psychology Research Group and the Department of Sociology. Our work programme fully reflects this interdisciplinarity.

What do you see as the big questions for the food climate research community at the moment?

To explore and provide recommendations with regard to responsibility on the issue of energy and carbon associated with the production, distribution, purchasing and consumption of food.

• Are consumers willing, informed enough and able to make conscious lower carbon food choices?
• Should the burden of responsibility be on consumers to make those choices?
• Is carbon labelling on food products likely to help or hinder consumers in making more sustainable food purchasing choices?

What are the big questions you feel you are seeking to answer at the moment?

The questions we are trying to address are embodied in our objectives. Specific objectives of RESOLVE are:

• to explore material, economic, psychological, sociological and cultural accounts of the relationship between lifestyle choice and environment;
• to develop theoretical and empirical understandings of the potential for long-term lifestyle change in moving towards a sustainable energy economy;
• to understand the economic, social and psychological implications of a technological transition to a sustainable energy economy;
• to develop an empirical 'evidence base' for effective policy intervention in energy-related behaviours and practices;
• to engage effectively with policy-makers, opinion-formers and the media in developing and communicating this new body of research.

Is there any expertise you feel you lack and would you welcome help/collaboration with others?

We are always looking to develop links with others, building on our strong policy connections and existing links with a range of national and international scientific bodies and research programmes.

What are the milestones we might look out for?

We will be building on our existing set of outputs which include over 90 publications appearing as peer reviewed journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters and our own working paper series that is available on our website. We are planning an interactive workshop for local authorities and community-based carbon reduction initiatives during late 2008/early2009.

Contact details

Gemma Cook
RESOLVE, Centre for Environmental Strategy (D3)
University of Surrey, Guildford
Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1483 686689
Fax:+44 (0) 1483 686671
Email: g.cook@surrey.ac.uk

www.surrey.ac.uk/resolve

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