Dr Sam Hampton
Senior Researcher and Departmental Lecturer, Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment
Dr Hampton is a social scientist working on the social and behavioural dimensions of climate change. His research examines how individuals, organisations and wider society can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and what enables or constrains meaningful climate action.
About
A major focus of Dr Sam Hampton's work is behaviour change and social influence: how people understand and respond to climate change, how pro-climate behaviours and social norms spread through society and how people can influence the climate-related behaviour of others. This includes research on prominent or powerful individuals but also ‘everyday influencers’ – people such as hairdressers, nurses and other trusted members of communities who may be able to encourage change through their everyday interactions and social networks.
Dr Hampton also researches public engagement with climate change, including how climate change and climate action can be communicated in ways that build understanding and engagement. Another strand of his research examines emissions inequality and people with high socioeconomic status. Their consumption can result in disproportionately high emissions, while their professional, financial and social influence can also give them greater capacity to contribute to climate action. Dr Hampton also works on climate leadership and organisational climate action, including how small and medium-sized enterprises can reduce their energy use and carbon emissions.
Expertise
- Behaviour change and climate action
- Public engagement with climate change
- Climate leadership
- Reducing energy consumption and emissions from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) [energy efficiency, clean energy measures, electrification]
- High socio-economic status individuals and emissions inequality
- Social norms, influence and community
Selected publications
- Social influence shapes climate attitudes and action (2026)
- Measuring carbon capability beyond the carbon footprint (2026)
- Public engagement and climate change: exploring the role of hairdressers as everyday influencers (2026)
- Climate change and wealth: understanding and improving the carbon capability of the wealthiest people in the UK (2025)
- Multiple roles of business for climate action (2025)
- Parenting and climate change: assessing carbon capability in early parenthood (2025)
- Carbon capability revisited: Theoretical developments and empirical evidence (2024)
- Where Next for SMEs and Net Zero? (2024)
Media experience
Dr Sam Hampton has experience working with a range of national and specialist media, and has been quoted in publications including TIME and The Guardian as well as in specialist climate and environmental publications.
Dr Hampton is also experienced in live broadcast interviews. He has appeared on BBC One and been interviewed live on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Wales discussing climate change, behaviour change and related research.
More broadly, Dr Hampton is comfortable communicating academic research to non-specialist audiences and discussing research findings and their implications in an accessible way.
Recent media work
- Wildfire Disruptions to the Tour de France Show How Climate Change Is Shaping Sports (TIME, 2026)
- A better way to measure individual climate action (CBC Canada, 2026)
- "Recycling is overrated" (Die Zeit, 2025)
- It’s official: rich people don’t give a f*ck about the climate crisis THEY’RE causing (The Canary, 2025)
- UK’s richest can boost climate action but need to cut outsized emissions – study (The Guardian, 2025)