Annie Austin

Annie joined Brook Lyndhurst in January 2008 and has research experience in the public, private and third sectors. She is now conducting PhD research at Manchester university and works with Brook Lyndhurst from time to time as an associate. She previously worked as a systems and services analyst at the General Social Care Council, and prior to that she worked for a conservation and social research organisation in Brazil. Annie is interested in all aspects of sustainable development and is a member of the UK Network of Environmental Economists. Her interests and skills include:

Food and climate change
Annie has worked on a number of projects exploring the climate change implications of the food chain. These include a project for the Greater London Authority that quantified the greenhouse gas footprint of London’s food sector, and a scenario planning exercise for the Food Policy Unit at Defra. Annie was on the consultation list for the Carbon Trust’s recently published Publicly Available Standard 2050: Assessing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services.

Behaviour change
Annie has worked on a number of projects that have explored pro-environmental behaviour change at the level of individuals and society, including the ‘Investigating Mavens’, ‘Exploring Catalyst behaviours’ and ‘Public understanding of the links between climate change and food and energy use’, all for Defra.

Social dimensions of sustainable development
Building on knowledge and experience gained during her masters degree and previous work at the General Social Care Council, Annie enjoyed designing and working on the ‘Social Capital: a rural dimension’ project for Defra.

Research skills
Annie enjoys both quantitative and qualitative analysis. She has experience in qualitative fieldwork techniques such as face to face interviewing and focus group facilitation. She has been lead researcher for a number of large literature and evidence reviews; for example, the recent ‘Exploring catalyst behaviours’ project involved an extensive search and review of academic and grey literature from the fields of psychology, sociology, economics, marketing and health, as well as programme evaluation data from environmental behaviour change projects.

Annie enjoys creative project design and tailoring methodologies to the questions at hand. For example, earlier this year she participated in an ESRC Network for Methodological Innovation workshop on Q methodology, and has since successfully used this method in one of our projects.

Annie has a first class degree in Philosophy and Hispanic studies from the University of London and a Masters degree in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.