Professor William Young

Profile

William’s research is focused on consumer behaviour around sustainability issues working with retailers, suppliers and consumer organisations. He develops theoretical frameworks and applied tools that understand and change consumer behaviour in purchasing and using products. The frameworks and tools use indicators to show measurable reductions in environmental impacts.

Recently William has received several sector-wide awards for his behaviour change research with Asda supermarket on food waste and a cross-University sustainability teaching initiative (the latter with the University's Sustainability Service and Discovery Themes). Current major research funding is focused on working with international retailers’ sales data to analyse mainstream purchase behaviour on green labelled products through the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre.

William is currently Associate Editor of the Resources, Conservation and Recycling journal which has an impact factor of 5.120. He is also on the journal Editorial Boards of Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Management and Social Business. William is co-organiser of the annual Corporate Responsibility Research Conference along with Kedge Business School in France.

Research interests

I am a sustainability behavioural scientist. My research is focused on consumer and organisational behaviour around sustainability issues working with companies, consumer organisations and government. I develop real world experiments to test behaviour change interventions and then measure the resulting behavioural and sustainability impacts.

<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

• BSc (Hons) Environmental Biology
• MSc Environmental Science with Environmental Management
• PhD Sustainable Business

Professional memberships

• FRSA

Student education

I teach at undergraduate and Masters level on sustainable behaviour change and sustainable business.

I have supervised 16 PhD students and external examined across the UK and internationally. I am always interested in supervising PhD students who want to study behaviour change and sustainability.

Research groups and institutes

• Sustainability Research Institute
• Business Organisations for Sustainable Societies
• Energy and Climate Change Mitigation

Current postgraduate research students

• Ben Robra

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/research-opportunities">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>

• The role of AI in overcoming the value-action gap in sustainable consumption for mainstream consumers (CDT in Data Analytics and Society)