Sustainable Consumption Institute

Dan joined the SCI as a Research Associate in January 2014, having completed his PhD, funded by the SCI, in 2013. Dan has recently completed a 15 month ESRC\SCI funded project ‘Households, retailers and food waste transitions’, led by Dr. David Evans. His next major research project addresses 'Sustainable Consumption & Production and Political Economy in the UK Food Service Sector'. He is also engaged in an ongoing project with Dr. Luke Yates developing a practice theoretical approach to collective action as well as developing his PhD research on sustainability communications. 

Dan’s PhD (2008-2013), supervised in Sociology by Prof. Dale Southerton and Prof. Alan Warde, took a practice theory approach to understanding the commercial field of sustainability communications. As part of his PhD fieldwork Dan worked as a copywriter and researcher for a sustainability communications agency. Subsequent to his PhD Dan worked in communications roles for the SCI and Sustainable Practice Research Group (SPRG), as well as a Research Associate for the SPRG.

Before his PhD, Dan worked as a copywriter, journalist and editor. From 2006-2011 he was a writer and researcher with the Ethical Consumer Research Association, the UK’s leading ‘citizen-consumer’ organisation, and was Co-editor of Ethical Consumer magazine (2008-2011).

Dan’s research interests include: cultural economy and cultural intermediation; social ontology and theories of practice; sustainability communications and commercial communications more widely; and sustainability transitions. He is interested in exploring neglected theoretical resources within theories of practice for the study of sustainable consumption, as well as developing links between practice theory and complementary approaches such as socio-technical transitions and economic sociology.

Publications

Welch, D. (forthcoming) "Social Practice Theory" in Spotswood, F. (ed.) Behaviour Change: Past, present and future. University of Bristol: The Policy Press 

Southerton, D and Welch, D. (forthcoming) "A Practice Theory Approach to Behaviour Change" in Christmas, S. (ed.) Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Behaviour Change Models. University College of London

Welch, D. and Warde, A. (2015) “Theories of Practice and Sustainable Consumption”, in Reisch, L. and Thøgersen, J. (eds.) Handbook of Research on Sustainable Consumption. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing

Evans, D and Welch, D. (2015) "Food Waste Transitions: Consumption, Retail and Collaboration Towards a Sustainable Food System." Stakeholder report on the 'Householders, Retailers and Food Waste Transitions' project

Welch, D. (2015) ‘Systems, actors, ends, narratives and identities’, in Foulds, C., Jensen, C.L., Blue, S. & Morosanu, R. (eds.) Practices, the Built Environment and Sustainability – Responses to the Thinking Note Collection, Cambridge, Copenhagen, London: GSI, DIST, BSA CCSG.

Welch, D (2015) “Sustainable Production and Consumption” in J. D. White (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Elsevier

Welch, D. (2015) “Book Review: Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Nick Clarke, Alice Malpass Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption”,  Journal of Consumer Culture

Spurling, N., McMeekin, A., Shove, E., Southerton, D. and Welch, D. (2013) “Interventions in practice: re-framing policy approaches to consumer behaviour” www.sprg.ac.uk

Welch, D. (2011) “Consumer Co-operatives” in D. Southerton (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Welch, D. (2011) “Ethnography” in D. Southerton (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Recent Blogs and Other Writing

'Who is responsible for household food waste?' 14 July 2015

'Food Waste Transitions' - final event of the 'Households, Retailers and Food Waste Transitions' project, 6 July 2015

‘Food for Thought’: international multi-stakeholder workshop brings food waste experts to Manchester 14 Jan 2015

‘The fuller our lives, the fuller our bins’ interview with Dan Welch, 18 August 2014

‘A sustainable food system is no longer an option. It’s a necessity’ by Dan Welch, 25 July 2014

‘Towards sustainable consumption: start by reframing the questions’ by Daniel Welch & Nicola Spurling, 22 April 2014

‘Pressure to cook and 'eat properly' leads to more food waste than Bogofs’ by David Evans & Daniel Welch, 10 April 2014

‘Unsustainable practices: Why electric cars are a failure of ambition’ by Nicola Spurling & Dan Welch, 5 March 2014