Speaker Profile

Jennifer Macklin (Downes) is a Senior Researcher at BehaviourWorks Australia, with 15 years’ experience in applied social and behaviour change research to develop effective policies and programs for household, organisational and system-wide change towards more sustainable and circular futures.

Jennifer has a particular passion for circular economy, with unique and unmatched expertise in understanding the application of behavioural insights to resource efficiency, waste prevention, recycling behaviours and circular business models. Through a series of comprehensive literature reviews both exploring academic and applied research, emerging behavioural science trials and on-the-ground behaviour change project evaluations, Jennifer has drawn together the latest evidence to understand circular and other pro-environmental behaviours and their underlying decision-making processes, alongside the approaches and strategies most effective in achieving broad-scale change within households, businesses and industries.

Jennifer has co-led BehaviourWorks’ two major circular economy research collaborations with the Victorian, NSW and Australian Governments: 2019-2021 Waste and Circular Economy Collaboration, and the current 2020-2023 Responsible Consumption Mission, which involved engaging with a ride wange of local and regional councils, key circular economy experts across Australia’s public, private, civil and research sectors.
She has also led a number of individual circular economy and waste prevention behavioural science projects with all levels of government, peak industry bodies and individual businesses, and environmental not-for-profits.