Simon Dresner
Research Fellow
s.dresner@psi.org.uk

Simon's expertise is in the social and economic aspects of sustainability. His book The Principles of Sustainability was published by Earthscan in 2002 and an updated second edition was published in 2008. In the area of environmental taxation, he coordinated an EC research project on social responses to ecological tax reform policies (PETRAS), worked on a project about ways to remove regressivity from environmental taxes and did research on public attitudes for the Green Fiscal Commission. He is now coordinating a project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation about designing a carbon tax to protect low-income households.

Mayer Hillman
Senior Fellow Emeritus
mayer.hillman@blueyonder.co.uk

Mayer's research interests include: energy conservation; walking and cycling; road safety; climate change; health promotion; quality of life issues; environmental and resource sustainability; green economics; children's physical and social development; setting clocks forward.

Visit his personal website here.

Elisabetta Mocca
Research Officer
moccae@psi.org.uk

Elisabetta is a Research Officer in the Environment Group at PSI. Elisabetta has a background in secondary data analysis and review work. She is currently working on a literature review on environmental energy systems and health, and conducting data analysis for the group’s work on Children’s Independent Mobility. Prior to joining PSI she worked as a researcher at the Institute for Economic and Social Research in Turin with a focus on social housing and health care. Elisabetta obtained a master's degree in Administration Science and a first degree in International Studies from the Faculty of Political Science in Turin.

Nazmiye Ozkan
Senior Research Fellow
n.ozkan@psi.org.uk

Nazmiye joined the PSI Environment Group in February 2005. Prior to joining PSI, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main research interests include integration of environment, economy and energy models; modelling and analysis of regional energy systems and their relationship to overall economic growth and development; analysis of climate change impacts and their implications for local healthcare policy and provision. Nazmiye holds a PhD in Regional Planning from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Athena Piterou
Visiting Research Fellow
athenapiterou@hotmail.com

Roger Salmons
Senior Research Fellow
r.salmons@wmin.ac.uk

Roger is an environmental economist with significant experience of applying economic analysis to the design and evaluation of environmental policy, having spent over 10 years as a researcher at PSI and CSERGE at University College London. During this time he worked on collaborative research projects with organisations throughout Europe and was a member of the European Research Network on Market-Based Instruments for Sustainable Development and the European Research Network on Tradable Emission Permits. His main areas of interest and expertise relate to the evaluation of environmental policies and measures; the design and evaluation of economic instruments; and environmental policy and economic performance.

In addition to his research activities, Roger has acted as an expert consultant to Defra, the Environment Agency, OECD and the European Commission. More recently, he has worked in the consultancy sector, as Technical Director for the Environmental Economics Team at Jacobs Engineering UK. Roger also has previous senior management experience in the commercial sector, having spent 11 years working for a leading UK retail company.

Ben Shaw
Head of Environment Group
b.shaw@psi.org.uk

Ben joined PSI in October 2006 and has been Head of the Environment Group since January 2008. Since joining PSI he has worked on projects investigating innovation, eco-innovation, environmental tax reform and the links between research and policy outcomes. He is one of the co-ordinators of the Defra/DfT funded Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) and manages the secretariat for the Green Fiscal Commission.

His current and recent projects include: Green Fiscal Commission which is looking at greening the UK tax system; a project for the SKEP Network of 17 European environmental ministries and agencies which is developing a methodology for assessing the impact of research on environmental policy; and leading the Children’s Independent Mobility project which is aiming to understand how children’s freedom to play and travel outside has changed over the past 40 years.

Prior to joining PSI, Ben was Principal Policy Adviser at Green Alliance. His work there mainly focused on national level strategic policy development in the areas of waste, resource and product policy, but also included projects on the role of negotiated agreements in UK environmental policy and sustainable consumption.

Derek Smith
Visiting Fellow

Derek has been a Visiting Research Fellow at PSI since October 2003. His principal areas of research are on the business impact of environmental policy, and on sustainable consumption and production, including the issue of product-related policy. He is currently the Director of a consultancy specialising in public policy analysis and evaluation. Prior to this, he worked for 13 years at Ernst & Young, in the Sustainable Development group and on risk management and assurance.

Derek's recent research has included:

• a systematic review of the drivers, barriers and incentives for resource productivity, undertaken for the UK DTI;
• a review of the extent and adequacy of UK government spending on environmental protection in the context of the 2004 public spending round;
• an analysis of UK energy efficiency policies and programmes as part of an independent evaluation carried out for DEFRA, focusing on public sector programmes and targets;
• a review of the market impacts and competitiveness impacts of sustainable procurement policies and targets;
• reviews for the European Commission and the UK government on the development of product-oriented environmental policy, including consideration of the role of instruments to create markets and drive green product innovation;
• a review for the European Commission into the adoption by industry of life-cycle approaches and its implications for competitiveness and trade.

Fred Steward
Professor of Innovation and Sustainability
f.steward@psi.org.uk

Fred joined PSI in October 2009. Prior to this, he led innovation research at the business schools of Brunel University and Aston University. Seconded to NESTA in 2008, he has advised government departments in the UK, Europe and China on innovation and sustainability. During 2009, he was seconded to Advantage West Midlands to develop a bid to the European Institute of Innovation & Technology for a climate change Knowledge & Innovation Community. He is Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London and President of the European Association for the Study of Science & Technology, EASST.

His primary research interest is in ‘transformative innovation’ - pervasive, radical, system-wide social and technological change. His approach to this is a synthesis between innovation network concepts and sociotechnical transition theory. The focus of his research is the role of innovation in addressing the global challenge of climate change and environmental sustainability, and the implications of this for policy.

Fred is a member of several international committees: the Dutch Knowledge & System Innovation programme, the Sustainable Consumption Research network and the IHDP Industrial Transformation programme. He is a member of the Royal Society committee on Global Environmental Change.

Stephen Tindale
Visiting Research Fellow

Stephen was previously Executive Director of Greenpeace UK and Chair of Greenpeace Europe in Brussels. Before that he was Special Adviser to Michael Meacher when he was Environment Minister. Prior to that, he was Head of Environment at IPPR. He has published short books (through IPPR) on Green Tax Reform and energy policy.

Robin Vanner
Visiting Research Fellow
robin_vanner@yahoo.co.uk

Robin has nine years of experience as a researcher and consultant in the field of environmental economics and policy. He has been a PSI Fellow since 2003 and a Visiting Research Fellow since 2006. He has developed a broad range of economic assessment expertise, developed during projects requiring compliance cost assessments, impact assessments and assessment of administrative costs. This area of work led Robin to co-authoring a book on the subject in 2009, Understanding the Cost of Regulation in Europe. Most recently he has been working on consumer-based policy for the EU looking at behaviour and pro-environmental product policy for a number of energy-using product areas including electronic appliances, electrical white goods and vehicles.

Ben Watson
Research Officer
watsonb@psi.org.uk

Ben joined PSI in July 2009, and is currently working on the Green Fiscal Commission and the Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN). Ben is also working on the Maiden Lane project, which will use action-based research to assess and improve how community recycling projects are implemented and used to encourage pro-environmental behaviour. Prior to joining PSI, he worked at FairPensions - the Campaign for Responsible Investment - and has been involved in many other environmental and human rights campaigns. In June 2008 he was given the 'London Social Justice Campaigner 2008' award by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation; a UK charitable foundation that aims to promote effective campaigning. Ben holds a first-class BA in Historical Studies from the University of Bristol.