Tim Cooper (academic)
Tim Cooper (born 1957) is an environmental thinker and campaigner best known for his work on sustainable consumption and the environmental impact of short product lifetimes. Professor of Sustainable Design and Consumption at Nottingham Trent University since 2010, he was a prominent member of the Green Party from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, serving as Chairman in 1986-87, and was co-founder of the leading UK church-based environmental organisation, Green Christian, in 1982.
Academic career[edit]
Cooper worked as an economist in the construction industry after graduating from the University of Bath in 1978. He was later employed by the New Economics Foundation, for whom he produced an influential[1] report on product lifetimes, Beyond Recycling, which criticised the lack of attention being paid in public policy to planned obsolescence and the throwaway culture. He was appointed to his present post in 2010, having lectured since 1995 at Sheffield Hallam University, where he was awarded a PhD in 2001.
Described as a ‘leading academic’ in the field[2], Cooper has pioneered research on product longevity within the context of sustainable consumption and production, establishing the Research Network on Product Life Spans with financial support from the EPSRC in 2004. Prominent members of the network contributed to a review of prevailing knowledge, Longer Lasting Products, of which he was editor.
A review funded by Defra of 60 sources of literature on product lifetimes described Cooper’s work as providing ‘the most useful evidence’ in the field[3]. In 2015 Cooper initiated the first international conference on Product Lifetimes and the Environment (PLATE), which is now a biennial event.
Since 2013 Cooper has been Co-Director of the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (CIE-MAP), a £4m EPSRC-funded Research Centre which explores the potential for reductions in materials consumption. He has advised UK governments[4] and evaluated research projects for funding bodies in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland and Belgium.
Product lifetimes[edit]
Cooper has argued that in order to progress towards environmental sustainability there needs to be a shift towards longer product lifetimes. His research in the early 1990s was based on concern that successive governments’ waste strategies were focused on the management of waste, and that greater attention needed to be paid to reducing the volume of waste that was being generated. In Beyond Recycling he proposed that only such a strategy would achieve the necessary reduction in the volume of energy and materials passing through industrial economies for sustainable development to be achieved.
In a widely cited paper[5][6][7][8][9], published in 2005 Cooper developed a model to explain why longer-lasting products are a prerequisite for sustainable consumption. He wrote: “longer product life spans provide a route to sustainable consumption whereby reduced materials and energy throughput arising from eco-efficiency is not offset by increased consumption, and the economy remains healthy because products are carefully manufactured and maintained and there is less dependence on rising consumption for economic stability.”
In Longer Lasting Products, published in 2010, he warned against undue dependence on resource efficiency for achieving environmental sustainability: “Greater efficiency through increased resource productivity will not adequately reduce the environmental impacts of consumption if it results in ‘green growth’ and the environmental gains made are offset by the ‘rebound effect’ of additional consumer spending.”
In recent years Cooper has been critical of UK Government inaction on product lifetimes and his research has been prominent in debate on the need to increase product lifetimes in the clothing sector.
Green beliefs[edit]
Green Politics[edit]
Cooper was a leading figure in the early years of the Green Party[10], serving as Co-Chairman of the Party Council in 1987-88 and its Economic Spokesman during much of the 1980s. He resigned from the party in the early 1990s, having stood as parliamentary candidate on three occasions, in order to concentrate on academic research. He has rejoined the Party but in recent years has been a vocal critic of its political strategy[11], arguing that an undue focus on traditionally left wing causes has undermined its attractiveness to supporters from conservative and liberal traditions.
Green Christianity[edit]
A regular churchgoer throughout his life, Cooper became an environmental campaigner while at university and joined Friends of the Earth in 1975. His desire to understand the relationship between religious convictions and concern for environmental degradation led him to establish Christian Ecology Link (later renamed Green Christian), a leading UK church-based environmental organisation, in 1982. Cooper served as its first National Co-ordinator and remains a trustee. His first book, Green Christianity, was published by Hodder in 1990.
Cooper explored the Green Party from a Christian perspective in a report for the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics published in 2015.
Personal life[edit]
Cooper has been married since 1989 and has three children. He is a supporter of Action for ME, an illness from which his late sister suffered for many years. In 2016 all five members of his family completed either the Nottingham marathon or half marathon in order to raise funds for the charity.
References[edit]
- ↑ Boyle, D. and Simms, A. (2004). News From Somewhere: A new economics reader - 20 years of NEF (the New Economics Foundation). New Economics Foundation., Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, England). London: New Economics Foundation. pp. 35, 71. ISBN 1899407693. OCLC 56681372.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link) Search this book on
- ↑ ERM (Environmental Resources Management) (2011). Longer Product Lifetimes, Chapter 1: Scoping Exercise. Final Report for Defra, London: Defra, p.13.
- ↑ Brook Lyndhust (2011). Public Understanding of Product Lifetimes and Durability. A research report completed for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) by Brook Lyndhurst, London: Defra, p.2.
- ↑ E.g. House of Lords Science and Technology Committee (2008) Waste Reduction, Volume II: Evidence, 6th Report of Session 2007–08, HL Paper 163–II, London: The Stationery Office.
- ↑ Allwood, J, M., Ashby, M, F., Gutowski, T, G., and Worrell, E. (2011). "Material efficiency: A white paper". Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 55(3): 362–381 – via Elsevier Science Direct.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A., and Crewe, L. (2007). "Identity, mobility, and the throwaway society". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 25 (4) (4): 682–700. doi:10.1068/d418t – via Sage Journals.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ Cox, J., Giorgi, S., Sharp, V., Strange, K., Wilson, D, C., and Blakey, N. (2010). "Household waste prevention — a review of evidence". Waste Management & Research. 28(3) (3): 193–219. doi:10.1177/0734242X10361506 – via Sage Journals.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ Evans, D. (2011). "Thrifty, green or frugal: Reflections on sustainable consumption in a changing economic climate". Geoforum. 42(5) (5): 550–557. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.03.008.
- ↑ WRAP (2009) Meeting the UK climate change challenge: The contribution of resource efficiency. WRAP Project EVA128. Report prepared by Stockholm Environment Institute and University of Durham Business School, WRAP.
- ↑ "National League of Young Liberals".
- ↑ Lean, Geoffrey (20 May 2015). "Would Britain be better off without the Greens?". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
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