Christian Bretter

I am a Senior Research Fellow in environmental psychology, particularly interested in the intersection of environmental behaviour (such as transport usage or food waste), social psychology, and political psychology. After completing my undergraduate degree and gaining significant experience in the industry, I sought to diversify my skill set and decided to study Engineering Business Management at the University of Warwick. It was here where I became interested in learning more about why people behave in certain ways and how, if possible at all, we can encourage them to change their behavior. After having spent another year in the UK construction sector, I went to the University of Leeds to dedicate the next three years to my PhD in Organisational Behaviour. These years have sparked my interest in understanding environmental behavior and the psychological factors that influence it. Hence I started working as an ESRC-funded Research Fellow in Environmental Psychology with particular focus on better understanding the psychological and behavioral factors driving household food waste. Working with different institutions such as the Waste & Resource Action Programme (WRAP), I have also launched and tested different interventions to reduce household food waste in the UK. After successful completion of this project, I have now joined the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) to examine, among other activities, the factors driving transport usage (particularly car use) and, building on this assessment, to explore possible avenues for behaviour change to reduce demand for individual car ownership. I am also examining the extent to which the public supports various climate policies, how we can encourage support for more effective policies, and the role worldviews and biases play in shaping such support.