Dr Milena Buchs
- Position: Associate Professor in Sustainability, Economics and Low Carbon Transitions
- Areas of expertise: Sustainable welfare and wellbeing; understanding and modelling inequalities in carbon emissions and distributional implications of carbon reduction
- Email: M.M.Buchs@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 11.114 School of Earth and Environment
- Website: Twitter
Profile
Dr Milena Buchs is an environmental social scientist and specialises on sustainable welfare and wellbeing. Combining theories and methods from ecological economics, social policy and sociology, Milena’s research seeks to contribute to making carbon reduction more equitable and wellbeing-enhancing while also being most effective in environmental terms. Much of her research focuses on 1) understanding and modelling the unequal distribution of greenhouse gas emissions across social groups; 2) on how the costs and benefits of carbon reduction policies can be shared more equally in societies; and 3) how to build welfare systems that are compatible with sustainable economics, improve people’s wellbeing, and respect planetary boundaries.
Milena joined the SRI in September 2016 as Associate Professor in Sustainability, Economics and Low-Carbon Transitions. Milena is currently PI of the EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship ShaRe (Fellow: Dr Diana Ivanova) which investigates the role of sharing within and between households for carbon reduction. She is also a Co-Investigator in the the Centre for Research on Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS), examining carbon emission inequalities and fairness implications of climate policies. Milena has previously led and collaborated on five major, interdisciplinary UK Research and Innovation grants (see details below), and has supervised eight PhD students to completion so far.
Prior to joining the SRI, Milena was lecturing at the University of Southampton in Sociology and Social Policy (2005-16).
Responsibilities
- Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research, School of Earth and Environment
- Deputy Director of the Cities, Environment and Liveability Pathway of the ESRC WRDTP
- Research Group Leader: Social and Political Dimensions of Sustainability
Research interests
Current research projects
Milena is a Co-I in the UK Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) (2018-23).
PI of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project “ShaRe – The potential of Sharing Resources for mitigating carbon emissions and other environmental impacts” (2019-2023), MSC Individual Fellow: Dr Diana Ivanova
Previous research projects (selection)
PI of the ESRC project "Who emits most" which examined the inequality of carbon emissions of UK households, and estimated implications for distributional effects of market-based climate mitigation policies. The dataset from that project is available from the UK Data Service.
Researcher Co-I, EPSRC Programme Grant Liveable Cities (2012-2017). Milena led a field experiment on a carbon calculator intervention for carbon reduction, and a project on the role of health status for household energy use.
Co-I on two UKRI funded projects, The role of community-based initiatives in energy saving and the Third Sector Research Centre Environment Stream, Milena led projects that investigated the capacity of different communities to reduce carbon emissions.
Current PhD students who I co-supervise:
Alice Garvey: Spatially just energy transitions
Joe Lawley: Low Carbon Energy Service Demands
Nick Langridge: Examining the environmental implications of Universal Basic Income
Ben Robra: Organisations and degrowth
Catherine Graves: Virtual reality and pro-environmental behaviour change
Robin Schulze Waltrup: Global eco-social policies
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>
Qualifications
- PhD in Social Policy, Humboldt University Berlin (Summa cum laude / Distinction)
- MSc Sociology with Political Science and Economics, University of Berlin (Distinction)
Student education
In 2020/21 I will be module convenor of SOEE5010 Research Methods, and lecture on SOEE5094 Ecological Economics, SOEE5582 Tools and Techniques, and FOEV5001 Cities and Sustainability (all M-level).
Research groups and institutes
- Sustainability Research Institute
- Economics and Policy for Sustainability
- Social and Political Dimensions of Sustainability
- Energy and Climate Change Mitigation