Dr Sabrina Chakori

Sabrina holds a BSc. in Biology (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and a MSc. in Environmental Economics (The University of Queensland, Australia). Her interdisciplinary PhD research (The University of Queensland, Australia) analysed the drivers of packaged food. Her work provided a repositioning of the socio-materiality of food packaging, politicising packaged food use. Her findings highlighted the need to pursue degrowth strategies to increase the sustainability of food systems. Sabrina is a passionate systems modeller (i.e. systems thinking, system dynamics, network analysis), she believes that systems approaches are crucial to understanding and tackling current socio-ecological wicked problems. Sabrina has been course coordinator and lecturer in various courses, teaching, for example, circular economy, social entrepreneurship, system dynamics and food systems sustainability.

Her CSIRO’s research focuses on the complex social-economic-ecological interaction that can influence socially just and ecologically sustainable transitions in Australia. Sabrina works in the Navigating Sustainability Transitions team (Valuing Sustainability, Future Science Platform, CSIRO). Her research adopts transdisciplinary science and systems methods to analyse, from a cross-scale perspective, social innovation and exnovation dynamics in postgrowth food systems transitions.

Sabrina has been working for a more sustainable society for more than 15 years, leading numerous collaborations in various countries across Europe, Kenya, Ecuador, Mexico & Australia, including an initiative with Queensland’s Environment Minister to introduce the law banning single-use plastic bags. To translate into practice her knowledge and vision, in 2017, she founded the Brisbane Tool Library, a social enterprise that encourages people to borrow tools, camping gear & other equipment. This community-driven circular economy model reduces productivism & consumerism. The Brisbane Tool Library has been Australia’s first & only ‘library of things’ to be located within a public library (the State Library of Queensland).

She is the co-founder of the Degrowth Journal, an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and, in 2021, and a former Post Growth Institute fellow. Winner of the 2020 Create Change: 7 News Young Achiever Award (QLD) and recipient of the Emerging Female Leader bursary from the National Council of Women of Queensland (2020), Sabrina is a multi-award social entrepreneur, researcher and educator.