Milena Buchs

Professor Milena Buchs is an environmental social scientist and specialises on sustainable welfare and wellbeing. Combining theories and methods from ecological economics, social policy and sociology, Milena’s research seeks to contribute to making carbon reduction more equitable and wellbeing-enhancing while also being most effective in environmental terms. Much of her research focuses on 1) understanding and modelling the unequal distribution of greenhouse gas emissions across social groups; 2) on how the costs and benefits of carbon reduction policies can be shared more equally in societies; and 3) how to build welfare systems that are compatible with sustainable economics, improve people’s wellbeing, and respect planetary boundaries.

Milena joined the SRI in September 2016. She is currently a Co-Investigator in the Centre for Research on Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS), examining carbon emission inequalities and fairness implications of climate policies, and PI of the EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship ShaRe (Fellow: Dr Diana Ivanova) which investigates the role of sharing within and between households for carbon reduction. Milena has previously led and collaborated on five major, interdisciplinary UK Research and Innovation grants (see details below), and has supervised nine PhD students to completion so far.

Prior to joining the SRI, Milena was lecturing at the University of Southampton in Sociology and Social Policy (2005-16).