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
matthewselinske.com 