About

Lili leads the Sustainable Innovation Lab at CHIA and is an internal visitor at Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge. She is a Senior Research Fellow in Sustainable Economy and interested in discovering real-world pathways to social, environmental and economic sustainability. Her research focuses on modelling sustainable behaviours, designing scalable technologies, and developing systemic strategies for sustainability transitions in the real world. ​

Lili’s research seeks to advance our understanding, design, and development of value-based solutions to motivating large-scale transitions to sustainability beyond legal compliance. Her article on “Motivating actions to mitigate plastic pollution” was among the Top 50 Earth and Planetary Sciences Articles 2019 in Nature Communications. She has been awarded Fellowships from both Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Since 2017, she has secured over £1.5 million in research grants.

Lili’s research findings have provided scientific evidence for policy development. Her article in Harvard Business Review presents a new vision for food companies and policymakers to improve the efficiency of sustainability reporting in food industry with digital traceability technologies. They supported the Environment Agency in officially expanding its scope to beyond legal compliance in the Regulatory Statement 2022. They were included in the UK’s Green Finance Strategy 2023 and the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs’ Food Data Transparency Partnership roadmap. ​​She serves on the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports.

Research

• AI applications for sustainability
• Digital traceability technologies
• Sustainable production and consumption
• Experimental economics
• Sustainability transitions
• Ecosystem
• Policy
• Economic, psychological, and management theories