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Group

Sustainable Consumption Research Group

Unit(s) of assessment: Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory

Research theme: Sustainable Futures

School: School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

Overview

Sustainable Consumption is a multidisciplinary research group that focuses on people's influence on sustainability as users of products and services, ranging from consumer durables and clothing. Members apply theoretical and practical knowledge from design and related disciplines to environmental and social sustainability, often integrating expertise in design with research frameworks drawn from the social sciences.

The group is based in the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment but works closely with sustainability experts across the University.

In the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, which assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Nottingham Trent University was ranked 4th in the world for Responsible Consumption and Production. The ranking measures universities’ research on responsible consumption and their approach to the sustainable use of resources.

Staff are active in the following areas of research:

  • product lifetimes of consumer durables (e.g. vehicles, electrical and electronic goods, furniture etc.) and semi durables (e.g. clothing)
  • sustainable design and consumer/user behaviour
  • innovative business models
  • sustainability and marketing
  • the repair and maintenance of consumer goods
  • reuse and upcycling
  • social innovation, collaborative consumption and social practices
  • sustainable materials and supply chains
  • product-service systems
  • craft-based practices
  • human-powered products
  • interdisciplinary practices and pedagogy.

PhD Opportunities

We welcome applications to undertake a higher degree by research leading to the award of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or Master of Philosophy (MPhil). Further information is available via email from the Doctoral School.

Collaboration

Staff collaborate with a range of other universities. For example, the EPSRC-funded Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (CIE-MAP) was a partnership between Nottingham Trent University, Bath University, Cardiff University and Leeds University. The PLATE (Product Lifetimes and the Environment) conference series is managed by NTU in collaboration with the University of Delft (Netherlands), Aalto University (Finland) and Sheffield Hallam University (UK).

The Centre works with a range of industry partners, government departments (e.g. Defra), charities (e.g. WRAP) and networks (e.g. RREUSE, the Reuse Network). Recent projects have involved collaboration with manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment, vehicles, clothing and furniture.

For academic and general enquires please contact the Research Group Leader, Professor Amin Al-Habaibeh by email or telephone +44 (0) 115 848 2564.

Areas in which members of the research group can offer skills and expertise are detailed below:

Product lifetimes in theory and practice

  • Product durability and longevity
  • Reuse and second-hand markets
  • Product quality
  • Product lifetime expectations

Sustainable consumption and production

  • The circular economy and slowing material cycles
  • Consumption and the symbolic / functional value of goods
  • Ethical consumption
  • Consumer / user behaviour
  • Innovative business models
  • Sustainable supply chains
  • Systems of use and the product-service mix

Design and Technology

  • Sustainable product design / eco-design / environmental design
  • User-centred design
  • Sustainable innovation
  • Design and social change

Energy, Materials and Products

  • Measuring environmental impacts / embodied energy
  • Sustainable materials consumption
  • Repair and maintenance
  • Self-powered products

Public policy

  • Product standards and planned obsolescence
  • Environmental labelling
  • Waste prevention
  • Green fiscal reform

Related staff

Group Lead

Professor Amin Al-Habaibeh (Acting Lead)

Publications

Publications by members of the Sustainable Consumption Research Group are too numerous to list here and may be found by clicking above on the names of individual members of the group. The group periodically holds events such as the climate change showcase, below.

Climate Change Showcase, December 2015

  • Professor Tim Cooper - Too much stuff: the impact of consumerism on climate change.
  • Dr. Amanda Smith - Urban energy transitions to low carbon futures: the case of Nottingham.
  • Dr. Lynn Oxborrow and Angharad McLaren - From Future Factory to clothing longevity.
  • Toby Tonkin - Monitoring environmental change with unmanned aerial vehicles: a case study from a high-Arctic glacier.
  • Carlos Abrahams - Extreme events and freshwater ecology.
  • Dr. Naomi Braithwaite - Turning waste into value: a Circular Economy approach to climate change mitigation.
  • Dr. Petra Molthan-Hill - Preparing for the climate change summit - insights from the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative.
  • Dr. Marianna Poberezhskaya - Communication and climate change: case study of Russia.
  • Dr. Mofakkarul Islam - Determinants of the uptake of renewable energy generation practices on UK farms.
  • Professor Amin Al-Habaibeh - The use of infrared thermography for the assessment of a building's insulation and energy performance.
  • Dr. Ben Taylor - Media technologies and e-waste.
  • Dr. Christine Cole - Climate change and the repair, reuse culture.
  • Dr. Jillian Labadz - Upland management for the reduction of carbon losses from peatlands.
  • Dr. Roy Smith - Existential threats and opportunities for the low lying atoll states of the Pacific.

Related projects

Clothing sustainability projects are listed here.