1. Faculty of Environment
  2. School of Earth and Environment
  3. People
  4. Profile
Gina Moran

Gina Moran

  • Email: ee20gm@leeds.ac.uk
  • Thesis title: Exploring perspectives on the 4-Day Working Week as an instrument for just transition among UK trade unions and union members
  • Supervisor: Professor Milena Buchs, Professor Vera Trappmann

Profile

I am a PG Cert / PhD candidate in the Sustainability Research Institute in the School of Earth and Environment, funded by the White Rose Doctoral Training Program. I studied on the Integrated Masters Sustainability and Environmental Management degree at University of Leeds from 2020 to 2024. I believe that the climate crisis and associated environmental degradation is rooted in the current hegemony of capitalism; that our current behaviours of consumerism, perceived individualism and environmental degradation have been socially constructed through the social construct of capitalism, and therefore can be molded differently under and towards an alternative, social-ecological system. As such, I’m interested in exploring how these alternatives realities might manifest and what their consequences could be. I’m particularly interested in exploring work as a vehicle for social change, and how workers can be involved in this transformation. My research will focus on trade unions and trade union members as critical actors in the transformation towards a more social-ecological world, with a vested interest in a ‘just transition’. I intend to explore how worktime reduction in the form of the 4-Day Working Week could figure into this transformation, and what the potential barriers and opportunities might be in this area.

Research interests

I am predominantly interested in research employing qualitative methods and critical realist approaches. I am interested in exploring work and worktime reduction alongside unions and just transition through an ecological economics, post-growth/degrowth lens. Relatedly, I’m keen to explore issues of sustainable work and welfare, and how these interrelated issues might connect in a post-growth/degrowth world. More broadly, I am keen to explore and demonstrate issues of justice associated with social-ecological transformation.

Qualifications

  • MEnv Sustainability and Environmental Management

Research groups and institutes

  • Sustainability Research Institute
  • Economics and Policy for Sustainability