Research

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

I am currently employed at RMIT through an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, awarded to Sarah Bekessy and Georgia Garrard, in collaboration with Atte Moilanen of The University of Helsinki. The interdisciplinary project seeks to develop alternative policies to biodiversity offsetting.

My research role is to examine the motivations and structural and psychological barriers to sustainable business practices, specifically biodiversity sensitive urban design and conservation / regenerative farming.

BEHAVIOR CHANGE

Excited to announce that my colleagues and I have been awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant!

This is a collaboration with ICON Science members Pia Lentini, Sarah Bekessy, and Georgia Garrard, along with Emily McLeod (Zoos Victoria), Fiona Fidler (University of Melbourne), Yoshi Kashima (University of Melbourne), and Amanda Rodewald (Cornell University).

The grant is co-funded by partners Zoos Victoria and Genovese Coffee and supported by the Smithsonian Institute’s Bird Friendly Coffee Initiative.

The grant “Effective biodiversity behavior change across supply chains” aims to examine the structural and behavioral barriers to biodiversity-friendly production and consumption, how to overcome them, and increase positive biodiversity impact via behavioral spillovers.

We will use coffee production and consumption as a case study to test behavioral interventions and develop a framework for generalising to other behaviors impacting biodiversity. The research will benefit Zoos Victoria’s planned “Wildlife-friendly Coffee Campaign” and Genovese Coffee’s sustainability efforts.

BEHAVIOR PRIORITISATION

Part of my PhD focused on prioritizing behaviors that benefit biodiversity and prioritizing interventions to foster or change these behaviours.

This work is ongoing with a recent collaboration with Victorian Government’s Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning, using expert elicitation to determine the biodiversity benefits of proposed behavior change interventions

PRIVATE LAND CONSERVATION

Private land conservation is a research topic near and dear to my heart. My first job in conservation was assisting landowners in Minnesota in prairie restoration and then a decade later the topic of my Masters research.

My work has concentrated on what drives and sustains participation in private land conservation, in the contexts of South Africa and Australia.

Research Partners

Australian Land Conservation Alliance

CapeNature, South Africa

City of Melbourne

Genovese Coffee

Nature Conservancy, Australia

Smithsonian Bird Friendly Coffee

Trust for Nature, Victoria

The Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning

Zoos Victoria