The work we publish creates an understanding of the connection between global discourses on climate change facts, specific policy responses and environmental law, contributing to ongoing debates in academia and beyond.
Our publishing links to the global project, including the UN Agenda 2030, and provides a solid foundation for international and domestic policies around global warming, to support building impactful democratic solutions.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Climate change, energy and sustainability, we aim to address the following goals:
Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability
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Diverse approaches to climate information services are emerging as impacts escalate in an urbanising globe. However, the climate information services involving cities are mainly collaborations with actors from science, multilateral, national and municipal authorities. There are limited efforts to build on knowledge from residents in local communities about risk and response options, to steer collaborations on climate information services. This article examines visual ethnography as an enabler of climate information services that connect societal and scientific objectives at local scales in cities. Based on case study findings from Kampala city in Uganda, local-level framings of climate risks and responses were grouped into exploratory and intersectional framings. The exploratory framings are risks and response options directly linked to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11 and 13 on cities and climate change respectively, while depicting some degree of contradiction. Intersectional framings are risks and response options demonstrating the interrelatedness of climate issues across different SDGs. Local communities do take on scientific information on impacts and adaptation barriers but also connect risks and responses to experiences of tested options, which sometimes only emerge during the process of visual ethnography and are not initially identified. Visual ethnography can be an important source of information not only on stressors experienced and priority actions by local communities, but can also be a climate solutions imagery, that contains positive adaptation stories with opportunities for enriching and complementing scientific inquiry on responses.
Although single-use food packaging is designed to be thrown away after one use, many households reuse it as part of mundane and tacit practices. However, this informal packaging reuse is hardly investigated compared to formal reuse systems like reusable packaging. Further, existing studies are mostly conducted in Western countries, where reuse and recycling are morally charged. Based on cultural anthropology and feminist theories, we argue, instead, that reusing also involves deliberate acts of revaluation and care. To analyse this ‘social life’ of disposable food packaging, we conducted in-depth interviews with 28 Brazilian households, including video documentation and pictures of household equipment. Results show that food packaging is reused, for example, for storing and passing on leftovers to neighbours or relatives, which is related to cultural logics such as the repetition of dishes. Through these interactions, disposable food packaging is transformed into a household object with not only practical but also emotional meaning. Our study contributes to the theorisation of the sociology of consumption, first, through empirically grounding the concept of culture-in-practice demonstrating that affects align the cultural and the material in domestic consumer practices. Second, we refine the concept of care-in-practice showing that packaging reuse enables the maintenance of care relationships with community members outside the homes. We conclude that recognising informal circular consumer practices – like packaging reuse – in countries of the global south can help achieve an inclusive circular economy.
Violence against women and girls (VAWG) has been at the forefront of feminist struggles for equality; however, movements to prevent VAWG have been depoliticised, particularly by Western voices, with processes rooted in colonialism and patriarchy. Despite a growing movement to decolonise violence prevention and centre voices and experiences of the Global South, many continue to navigate power-imbalanced partnerships. To dismantle power imbalances within North–South and South–South collaborations, it is necessary to reflect on positionalities and ‘power within’, explore deep structures of partnership models, technical assistance and funding mechanisms, and collectively harness the ‘power to’ create systems promoting trust, mutual learning and accountability.
We conducted a qualitative retrospective and prospective, multi-site case study to generate evidence on effective technical assistance and partnership models for adapting and scaling VAWG prevention programmes and contribute to discussions on feminist funding approaches and devolution of funder power. We examined partnership models and power dynamics among funders, programme designers and implementers involved in adapting Program H (Lebanon), Take Back the Tech Campaign (Mexico), Safetipin (South Africa), Legal Promoters Training and Community Care Model (Cape Verde) and Transforming Masculinities (Nigeria). This provocation builds upon findings from this research by offering first-person reflections from some members of the study team, Study Advisory Board and study participants. Authors respond to provocative statements by drawing upon experiences from this study and other projects for how funders, programme implementers and researchers can better work together to accelerate efforts to achieve social and gender justice within and beyond the violence prevention field.
The circular economy vision assumes that consumers will be increasingly turning into users of circular services, enabled by various digital platforms. Yet while apps can help to connect and educate consumers on circularity, the app market can be overwhelming. Moreover, many digital tools are designed for consumers as independent rational individuals, interested in self-gain and self-education. Our study combines social learning theory, literature on circular consumption and digitalisation to highlight the need for digital solutions that could reinforce existing social relations and serve as enabling tools for neighbourhood-based approaches of reusing, sharing, renting and recycling together with close circles of friends, relatives or neighbours. Empirically, we draw on everyday experiences of front-runner citizens who have been implementing circularity, zero waste and sustainable consumption principles to examine whether and how digital platforms have facilitated their circularity in everyday life. Our study is based on a set of 40 semi-structured interviews, analysing the circular experiences of eco-activists and eco-influencers from Finland and the city of St Petersburg (Russia) and their use of digital platforms for circularity. Our results show that despite the flourishing app market, the circular citizens from our data often relied on ad-hoc solutions developed through social media platforms and messenger apps to facilitate their circular consumption in local communities with shared values regarding circularity. While these solutions might lack the sophistication and technical flexibility for convenient search and filtering, they still remain attractive due to their capacity to embed circular consumption locally and among preferred social circles.
This article investigates the extent to which health professionals are equipped to support vegan mothers in the UK and how stigma plays a part in this issue. Veganism has grown in popularity in the UK in recent years (as well as in many other countries worldwide) with the environmental, health and animal welfare benefits of the lifestyle becoming more widely researched and publicised. However, research into the topic of veganism has highlighted that, up until recently, many vegans experienced stigma for their beliefs, with the UK being no exception. Similarly, a growing body of research has highlighted the long-accepted and gendered issue of mum-shaming, whereby mothers, as opposed to fathers, are disproportionately criticised and blamed for their parenting skills. In this article we want to examine the experience of women who fit into both categories of veganism and motherhood in their encounters with health professionals during pregnancy and while raising their babies on a vegan diet.
Adopting semi-structured interviews, this study gauged the opinions of a sample of vegan mothers, non-vegan mothers, midwives and paediatricians. Our findings indicate that in the UK, healthcare professionals are not equipped to provide vegan mothers with nutritional advice. This was found to be due to a lack of understanding of veganism, which, in some cases, fuelled negative ideas on veganism and led to stigma towards vegan pregnant women and vegan mothers. All healthcare professionals interviewed stressed the severe lack of training on vegan nutrition, as well as nutrition more generally.
This chapter examines the role of civil society in advancing sustainable welfare in the Swedish metropolitan cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. It views civil society as a space for collective action and potential transformation, where organisations, movements and activist networks strive for change. The chapter explores the collaboration and integration between civil society groups focused on environmental and welfare issues. Based on interviews with leaders and a survey of participants in environmental protests, the findings reveal an absence of a unifying master frame that bridges the environmental and welfare divides. This is primarily attributed to the particularistic nature of civil society organisations and their alignment with the siloed structure of local government, which separates policy areas. While inertia appears to dominate, the chapter highlights the emergence of a justice frame able to mobilise supporters from both environmental and welfare sectors, offering a potential path towards sustainable welfare.
This concluding chapter evaluates whether Swedish cities have successfully bridged the gap between environmental and welfare concerns in urban governance. Despite the disruptive pressures of climate change, the findings indicate that substantive transformative change has not yet occurred in the investigated cities. Environmental and welfare policy domains remain largely separate, with civil society organisations and public attitudes continuing to operate within a framework of differentiation rather than integration. While many results adhere to established pathways, the chapter highlights that patterns of inertia and emergence coexist. Actors actively push for new discourses and practices to integrate environmental and welfare concerns. However, the emergence of a sustainable welfare path remains contested, with expressions of denial, rejection and opposition to transformative efforts. Drawing on Polanyi’s concepts of movements and counter-movements, these tensions do not represent a failure of transformation but rather the clarification of two competing pathways for addressing the challenges and risks posed by climate change.
The introductory chapter outlines the core challenge of providing welfare within planetary boundaries, a pressing issue for cities and societies globally. It emphasises the growing recognition of climate change’s impact on welfare and social risks, forming the foundation for the book’s objectives. It explores patterns of inertia, emergence and transformation in Swedish urban governance and analyses if and to what extent Swedish cities have overcome the separation between welfare and environmental concerns and practices. Sweden, with its strong social democratic welfare legacy and widespread support for environmental policies, serves as a compelling case to examine factors that either promote or impede the integration of these domains. The chapter introduces the three cities central to the study – Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö – and outlines the three sites of urban governance explored in the book: local government, civil society and public attitudes. This sets the stage for the empirical investigation of sustainable welfare integration in Swedish urban governance.
This chapter examines how city governments and administrations integrate environmental and social concerns into urban governance. Utilising theories of policy integration, it explores the potential for eco-social integration in three major Swedish cities – Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. The findings, based on interviews and document analysis, reveal limited integration between environmental and welfare domains. The siloed structure of public administration poses a significant barrier to cross-sectoral integration, compounded by resource constraints and the high degree of specialisation among experts. Despite this inertia, signs of emergence are observed in the form of urban experiments – short-term projects that challenge existing silo structures but generally do not establish lasting pathways for integration. The chapter recognises the potential impact of the sustainable development goals in reshaping urban governance, offering a path towards enhanced integration of eco-social policies.
Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Pathways to Sustainable Welfare critically examines how cities can address the dual challenges of climate change and sustainability while ensuring the welfare of their populations.
Focused on three Swedish cities, it explores the integration of environmental and welfare concerns in local policies, urban movements and public opinions. Based on theories of inertia, emergence and transformation, it identifies factors driving or obstructing sustainable welfare advancements.
This book is a crucial resource for scholars interested in sustainable transformation, urban governance and social policy. It offers frameworks and empirical evidence relevant to academics, policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand and engage in urban sustainable welfare development.
