Dr Nicola Spurling, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, spent 1 week from 1^st-7^th May 2025 working at Concito, a Copenhagen-based Danish climate think-tank whose work influences national and international decision making processes and policy. Nicola was hosted by Dr Charlotte Louise Jensen, a Senior Advisor who is working on consumption and sustainability in everyday life.

The visit had two purposes, the first purpose was for Nicola to share her work on interventions in practices, everyday futures, mobile utopias and societal readiness as part of Concito’s current project ‘Living well below 3 tons’, which explores the transformation in Danish ways of life that are needed to meet the Paris Climate Agreement carbon targets.

The second purpose was to build an understanding of how people with degrees in Sociology and Social Science can have careers addressing environmental issues and climate change. Social scientists at Concito shared their career stories and job roles with Nicola, which will be used in workshops with Sociology undergraduate and masters students at Lancaster, as part of exploring public sociology in the field of climate and environmental change.

Taking sociological research into practice

The collaboration with Concito has its footing in Nicola’s work on ‘Interventions in Practice’ for a low carbon society, making sustainable ‘Everyday futures’ and ‘Mobile Utopias’ and ‘Societal Readiness’ of innovation for sustainability. These three areas speak to challenges that Concito’s Charlotte Louise Jensen is working on.

There is widespread agreement that systemic change is needed to meet the Paris Climate Agreement carbon targets, and that systemic change needs to accompany carbon capture technology, not be replaced by it. But how should this systemic change be achieved? There is a growing recognition in academia, and in organisations like Concito that we need to broaden the types of knowledge that shape sustainable futures. Current visions and approaches to systemic change are, on-balance, ‘top down’, with less attention to social good, equity and utility for people and place. An alternative starting point, grounded in Sociology, is to treat everyday life and the activities which characterise it as sites for futuring. Doing this really expands the possibilities for systemic change, the sites of change, and who takes part in change.

During a week of activities at Concito, including a talk - ’Want to get to know the future?’ - which covered a rich selection of methods for everyday futuring; a co-designed workshop - ‘Copenhagen 2049’; meetings; and report writing, Nicola worked with Concito to help identify how their futuring methods could include everyday futures alongside quantitative models. This co-working identified that these methods should include: 1) an acknowledgement of the social practices constituting and enabling everyday life, society and consumption patterns, 2) an understanding of needs and wellbeing rather than only satisfiers; 3) participatory methods that bring diverse communities to imagine alternative ways of life, and 4) deliberative spaces where people can discuss what they actually want their lives to look like—within planetary boundaries.

Such methods can tackle questions that current approaches sideline: What is energy for? What types and levels of mobility are necessary for a meaningful life? What modes of decarbonisation are relevant for different people & place? What is a “good” life within planetary boundaries? These are not abstract questions. They are about the essential matters of how we live, love, eat, move, care and rest.

Bringing sociology-in-practice into the curriculum

The visit was also a valuable opportunity for Nicola to continue her work exploring ‘what roles for sociologists in climate and environmental change?’, which is a question she has been using to bring external expertise into the Lancaster Sociology curriculum. Taking Sociology into the world, and into a job and career in climate and environmental change. doesn’t just happen, but this is a path that a growing number of people are shaping for themselves. Learning how people are doing this, the kinds of work that they do, and how they stay connected and committed to their social science roots is inspiring. By doing this work they engage in a kind of ‘public sociology’. Finding out about this work, and bringing it to Sociology students, as part of critical discussion, is one way in which Nicola champions it.

One example (in addition to Charlotte Louise Jensen’s work described above), is Concito’s Climate Embassy (led by Synnøve Kjærland) which is responding to children and young people’s demands for knowledge and action on climate change. Several members of this team have sociology or social science backgrounds, and bring their understanding of participatory action approaches, inequality and diversity, eco-anxiety, creative methods, and young people’s agency into the development of inspiring resources and initiatives, and delivery of sessions for children, young people and teachers.

Conclusion

This visit showed how sociology can play a powerful role in tackling climate change—not just in theory, but in real jobs, projects, and decision-making. Working with Concito helped illuminate the importance of sociological ideas about everyday life, change, and justice in conversations about and work on what sustainable futures could actually look like.

The exchange also showed that there are career paths for people with sociology and social science backgrounds who care about the environment and want to make a difference. Identifying these paths, and understanding the skills needed to shape and defend them, underscores the importance of equipping students with the tools and stories that expand their sense of what is possible. Whether it’s rethinking how we live, designing low-carbon futures, or bringing unheard voices into the conversation, sociology provides powerful tools for action.

The collaboration marks an ongoing commitment to making sociology public, practical, and deeply relevant in the work of environmental and societal change. Thank you to Concito’s International Funding Scheme, and the Department of Sociology Research and Development Fund for making it possible.