- Climate Change, Energy Policy and Sustainability
About me
Dr Catarina Araya Cardoso is a senior lecturer at Westminster Business School, where she leads modules on energy policy and business decision-making.
Catarina's background is in Economics and Geography. She has a combined BA/MA in Economics from Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon and an MPhil in Geography from the University of Cambridge. Catarina's PhD is from the London School of Economics. Her doctoral dissertation explored the linkages between local resource management and the global political economy.
In her research, Catarina has used interdisciplinary approaches to analyse real-world challenges related to the low-carbon energy transition, environmental change, and sustainable development.
Catarina’s research interests include
- the role of energy demand in transitioning to low-carbon energy systems,
- the effectiveness and fairness of UK energy policy, and
- sustainability challenges in middle-income countries
Prior to joining academia, Catarina worked for ten years at the Carbon Trust, WWF-UK, and the European Commission on climate change, energy policy, carbon markets, and business adoption of energy and climate change strategies. This work triggered her interest in energy policy research and the socio-political and economic challenges associated with changing businesses' and individuals' energy use.
Affiliations:
- British Institute of Energy Economics, Member
- International Association of Energy Economics, Member
- New Hall Society - Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, Committee member
Teaching
A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2019, Dr Cardoso co-designed and now teaches a module on Sustainable Energy Policy for an MA Programme.
She also leads four level 2 modules on Business Decision Making, in which students use a Business Simulation Game to apply their learning to ‘real-life’ situations.
Dr Cardoso has also led modules on Behavioural Economics (undergraduate), and taught Public Economics, Development Economics, and Economic Policy Perspectives.
Research
In her research, Dr. Catarina Araya Cardoso has integrated economic theory (environmental economics, behavioural economics, institutional economics, political economy) with sociological and political theoretical perspectives to the analysis of real-world challenges related to sustainability, development and the low carbon energy transition.
Catarina is particularly interested in the interaction between public policy and individual and business decision-making processes. Her research interests concern
- Energy demand – individual and organisational decision-making process related to energy efficiency, demand reduction, and demand-side flexibility.
- Environmental and energy policy – effectiveness and fairness of environmentally driven changes to public policies and electricity market design.
- The interaction between low carbon energy transitions and sustainable development - energy policy in middle-income countries, particularly Chile and Brazil.
Publications
For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.