Dr Caroline Verfuerth

(she/her)

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

Caroline researches sustainable food consumption, food systems, and public engagement with climate change using mixed methods approaches. Committed to research impact, Caroline is actively developing projects in collaboration with policy-makers, NGO's and private sector organisations.

Net Zero Transitioning: Redefining Assumptions Behind Access to Low-carbon Food in Resource-Constrained Communities (2024 - 2025) Co-PI (AFN network+ funded; £50,000).

Strengthening climate policy through social science: Co-developing behavioural indicators for climate action with the Welsh Government. Leveraging secondary data analysis to inform the Public Engagement Strategy for Climate Change of the Welsh Government (2024-2025) PI (£10,000; UEA HEIF funding).

CAST: Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (2019 - 2028)  Co-I (since 2024; ESRC funded Research Centre; £1.5 million)

• What could low-carbon transformed futures look like? (2024-2028): Project 1.2: Developing a public engagement and visioning toolkit for deliberating sticky topics. Project 1.3: Embedding public perspectives and social science into policy-making. 
• Lead of Project 1.2 (2019-2024): Comparing visions of change across countries.
• Project  2.1 (2019-2021): Learning from government-led transformations. 

A people-centred approach is needed to meet Net Zero goals (2023) PI (£4000 funded by the British Academy).

The Implications of Behavioural Science for Effective Climate Policy (2023) Co-I (£25,000 funded by the UK Climate Change Committee). 

Welsh Government Behaviour Change Fellowship (2021-2023) PI (Welsh Government funded; £80,000). Caroline provided advise and co-developed projects across multiple policy teams from a psychological perspective drawing on methods (e.g. visioning, survey design, use of qualitative methods) and research insights (e.g. public perceptions on climate change, diet change, material consumption). Close collaboration with the Food Policy team, Decarb Team, and Strategic Evidence Unit – linked reports & paper: Verfuerth et al., (2023); De Vito et al., (2023); Miller Research (2023). Completed.

Accessible Veg Project (2021-2022) PI (ESRC/ IAA & WWF/Food Sense Wales funded £19,000). Accessible Veg: A pilot project exploring the barriers and benefits to CSA memberships for food-insecure households.

Citizens’ Climate Assemblies: Understanding public deliberation for climate policy (2019-2020) Co-I (£25,000 funded by the European Climate Foundation. 

Conference funding: 6th BrEPS Conference for ECRs: The Future & How We Shape It (2019) Co-I (£1000 funded by the ESRC)

Course: ‘Research making a difference’ run by Imperial College London (2017) £500 funded by NERC 

Postgraduate Travel Award (2017) £680 funded by the Learned Society

Full PhD Scholarship: Sustainable behaviour in the workplace. Funded by the Marketing Division (2015-2019) ~£60,000 funded by Sheffield University Management School

Development of a sustainability strategy for the Sustainability Office (2015) 5,400€ awared by the Pro-vice Chancellor of the Otto-von-Guericke-University

Conference funding for the Initiative in Environmental Protection and Psychology Society (2012-2013) €12,000 funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Teaching

BST350 Marketing Fundamentals

BST352 Marketing Research

Biography

Since 2024, I have been a Lecturer in Marketing and Strategy at Cardiff University Business School. My research focuses on sustainable consumption, climate change communication, and pro-environmental behaviour, with a particular emphasis on sustainable diets, identity, and lifestyle change.

Before joining Cardiff, I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher, Research Fellow, and Knowledge Exchange Fellow with the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) from 2019 onward. From 2021 to 2023, I was seconded to the Welsh Government, where I advised on community food systems and behaviour change policy.

At CAST, I co-led research on cross-cultural visions of low-carbon futures in the UK, China, and Sweden. Through participatory workshops, we explored what types of future people consider both feasible and desirable, and how this shapes their engagement with climate action.

I completed my PhD at the University of Sheffield (2015–2019), where I studied the impact of a workplace meat reduction intervention on employees’ sustainability behaviours at home. My PhD and broader research portfolio use mixed methods to understand and promote low-carbon lifestyles and behavioural shifts.

Before my PhD, I completed an MSc in Environmental Psychology at Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg in 2015. During that time, I worked on projects related to environmental psychology and behaviour change at Magdeburg, the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, and a research consultancy in Berlin.

My undergraduate degree in Psychology was awarded by the University of Hamburg in 2011. Alongside my studies, I worked as a student assistant in media psychology, media management, and market research at the University of Hamburg, the Hamburg Media School, and in industry.

Beyond academia, I have been actively involved in environmental psychology networks, serving as a board member of the German Psychology Initiative in Environmental Protection (IPU), co-founding the British Environmental Psychology Society, and initiating the Sustainability Office at Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg.

Academic positions

Since 09/2024: CARBS, Lecturer in Marketing & Strategy

07/2019 – 08/2024: Cardiff University - School of Psychology, Postdoc in the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations.

10/2022 – 04/2024: University of Bath - Psych Department, KE Associate the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations.

11/2021 – 04/2024: Welsh Government, Policy Fellow in the Strategic Evidence Unit

Speaking engagements

2023: “We need to put people at the heart of effective climate policies”, hosted by Environment Platform Wales.

2023: “A people-centred approach is needed to tackle climate change”, hosted by Prof Taciano Milfont at the Waikato University, New Zealand.

2023: “SYSTEMS MAPPING: a case study on Community Food”, talk to policy makers, Welsh Government.

2022: “Diet change in the workplace & at home: Key findings from a behaviour change intervention”, talk to policy makers, Welsh Government.

2022: “Diet & behaviour change: What are key drivers and lessons learned from ‘real-world’ behaviour change interventions?” Innovation Festival Newcastle, Northumbrian Water.

2021: “Transforming lifestyles: Food choices, changing behaviours, and spillover effects”, hosted by Dr Elena Sautkina, Higher School of Economics, Russia.

2021: Invited expert panellist on public engagement debate “Die Klimadebatte”, hosted by ‘Mehr Demokratie’ (YouTube life stream with 700+ live viewers; link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SlDz74hJRQ ).

2021: “What diet changes do people in the UK find desirable and feasible; and how can we facilitate these?”,  hosted by the UK Government Department of Agriculture & Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

2021: “How can we as a society live differently and better to achieve systemic, deep and rapid emission reductions?”, Hungary-CAST-Tyndall workshop hosted by MPs in Hungary.

2019: Youth Debate on the impact of lifestyles on Climate Change, with local schools at the National Museum Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru).

Committees and reviewing

I'm on the advisory boards of Sustain’s Bridging the Gap Programme and the WellFed Network in Cornwall.

I have reviewed for the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, and others.

I have also been invited as an expert reviewer for policy reports and grants, including for the Belgian Government (Federal Public Planning Service Science Policy), the Environmental Protection Agency of the Republic of Ireland, and the UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Supervisions

Current supervision

Yanpeng Pei