Current Post: ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Room Number: ZICER 1.15

Telephone: 01603 593116 (+44 1603 593116)

Fax: 01603 593901 (+44 1603 593901)

Email: tom.hargreaves@uea.ac.uk

Publications: EPrints Digital Respository



Research Interests

Pro-environmental behaviour change; sustainable consumption; sustainable lifestyles; environmental socialisation; environmental discourses and rhetoric; social practice theory; sociotechnical innovation; interdisciplinarity; qualitative methods.


Biography

I studied for a BA in Geography at Cambridge University (2002) where I first became interested in the inter-relations between environmental and social change. Subsequently I completed Masters degrees in ‘Leadership for Sustainable Development’ (with Forum for the Future / Middlesex University - 2003) and in ‘Environment, Science and Society’ (at University College London - 2005), before completing my ESRC-funded PhD at the University of East Anglia which sought to develop socio-cultural understandings of pro-environmental behaviour change processes through an ethnographic case study of a behaviour change intervention in a workplace (2008).

Since my PhD I have been working on a multi-university and interdisciplinary project concerned with developing socially and politically plausible ‘Pathways to a Low Carbon Energy Economy’ (funded by EPSRC). On this project, my research has looked specifically at householder engagement with energy through improved feedback mechanisms such as real time displays, and at the challenges involved in interdisciplinary research that spans the social science and engineering divide. I took up my current post as an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow on 1st November 2009. In this role I am seeking to advance my doctoral research, and the research agenda on sustainable lifestyles and pro-environmental behaviour more generally, by further exploring the social and cultural aspects of behaviour change and environmental socialisation processes.


Significant Publications

• Hargreaves, T. (2011). Practice-ing behaviour change: Applying social practice theory to pro-environmental behaviour change. Journal of Consumer Culture, 11(1), 79–99. doi:10.1177/1469540510390500.
• Hargreaves, T., Nye, M., & Burgess, J. (2010). Making energy visible: A qualitative field study of how householders interact with feedback from smart energy monitors. Energy Policy, 38, 6111–6119. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.05.068.
• Nye, M. and Hargreaves, T. (2010). Exploring the social dynamics of pro-environmental behaviour change: A comparative study of intervention processes at home and work. The Journal of Industrial Ecology 14(1), 137-149.
• Hargreaves, T., Nye, M., and Burgess, J. (2008). Social experiments in sustainable consumption: an evidence-based approach with potential for engaging low income communities. Local Environment, 13(8), 743–758.
• Hargreaves, T. and Restorick, T. (2006). Changing Environmental Behaviour: A Review of Evidence from Global Action Plan. London, Global Action Plan.

Page last updated 25 October 2011