Seminars

Friday 7th November

This talk will discuss the importance of market segmentation and provide an overview of a number of studies that Sara has undertaken where market segmentation was used for the purpose of achieving increased environmental sustainability.

Sara Dolnicar is a professor in the School of Business. Her core research interests are to improve market segmentation methodology and test and refine social science research measures. She has applied these interests to a range of applied research areas including sustainable tourism, environmental volunteering, and public acceptance of water alternatives and water conservation measures. Sara has (co-)authored more than 200 refereed papers, and has been awarded a prestigious ARC QEII Fellowship.

Friday 30th May 2014

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan (Basin Plan) is tasked with improving welfare by internalising the negative externalities derived from the past 130 years of policy development which has over allocated water resources to irrigators in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). Since the signing of the implementation phase of the Basin Plan in February 2014, there remains a small window of opportunity to influence both the final legislative agreement and the implementation review before Australia misallocates a large proportion of the $13 billion in public funds set aside to deal with water reform in the MDB.

This talk will argue three main points:1) In light of water supply uncertainty derived from climatic variability and climate change, that infrastructure investment programs will lock resources into inefficient production areas and possibly create a legacy of rural debt and failure; 2) By understanding the spatial and temporal nature of water rights and climate change influences on inflows that for $3.1 billion an optimal bundle of entitlements could be purchased that delivers the twin Basin Plan goals of increased environmental flows and salinity mitigation; and 3) The Basin Plan has a hidden gift of increased groundwater access that could shield irrigators from increasing climatic risk while potentially increasing the risk of long run aquifer degradation.

David Adamson started his professional life as the economist at the CRC for Tropical Pest Management and joined the School of Economics at The University of Queensland in 2004 to work on climatic variability and uncertainty impacts on water management in Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin. He has been commissioned to work on The Garnaut Climate Change Review and has recently completed a PhD reviewing the Basin Plan.

Friday 21st March 2014

This talk discusses research on mobilising change with and against the tide of public opinion – that is, when there is a perception of consensus and rapid change, versus when there is a perception of public inertia. What are the key triggers of environmental action in the face of real or perceived public indifference to sustainability? And what are the key steps to take to initiate and prepare for the next swing of the pendulum? This talk will summarise a programme of research in social psychology which considers environmental behaviour as a property of groups as well as individuals. Our analysis focuses on decisions made by individuals (e.g., individual energy or water conservation, or voting for green parties versus conservatives) nested within groups (e.g., occupation, neighbourhoods, states, nations, or households). Our proposal is that these groups provide barriers and opportunities for changing individuals’ behaviour. In particular, group-level approaches provide bases from which to generate radical change in the face of widespread indifference to sustainability.

Winnifred Louis is A/Professor in the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland. Her research interests focus on the influence of identity and norms on social decision-making. She has studied this broad topic in contexts from political activism to peace psychology to health and the environment.