Dr Rorie Beswick-Parsons

Rorie Parsons is a Geographer with a research focus that is concerned with issues of sustainability and understanding social change.

His recent research pays attention to two questions: (1) how consumer practices and patterning of everyday life change when accommodating alternative packaging systems; and (2) how business practices, technologies, and markets interact in processes of change (or resistance) in respect to packaging. His work approaches these from both a historical and contemporary standpoint through a mixture of research methodologies, most notably, ethnography, archival analysis, and secondary data research.

Prior to his current role, Rorie has contributed to several major multidisciplinary projects as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate, with a particular emphasis on exploring social and technical solutions to the challenges of plastics. These include Plastics: Redefining single-use (EPSRC), Many Happy Returns - Enabling reusable packaging systems (NERC), and Reducing plastic packaging and food waste through product innovation simulation (NERC). He is also currently a contributor to the Horizon Europe funded project, Business-driven systemic solutions for sustainable plastic packaging reuse schemes in mass market applications.