About

Green criminology combines elements of traditional criminology with ecology and environmental studies to understand and combat environmental crimes and animal cruelty. Researchers working in green criminology often explore the social and legal aspects of such crime and the broader ecological, social and animal welfare consequences of human activity. These include both systematic offences committed by corporations and individual criminal acts, as well as the everyday acts of human consumption that collectively lead to environmental degradation and animal cruelty.

The field analyses how human activities, whether legal or illegal, affect the environment and animals and can contribute to widespread environmental problems, such as biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and climate change. Examples include pollution, illegal deforestation, climate change, and legal and illegal trade in animals and plants.

The field is interdisciplinary, incorporating insights from political ecology, sociology, biology, law and economics.

Aims

Green criminology aims to understand and combat environmental crimes and practices, but also proposes solutions and policies to reduce environmental crime and promote a more sustainable future.

Areas of interest

  • Environmental justice and environmental rights
  • Regulation and enforcement
  • Corporate crime
  • Ecological crime
  • Animal rights and animal cruelty, species justice

Selected research projects

Selected publications

  • Beirne, P., & South, N. (Eds.). (2013). Issues in green criminology. Routledge.
  • Brisman, A., & South, N. (2014). Green cultural criminology: Constructions of environmental harm, consumerism, and resistance to ecocide. Routledge.
  • Brisman, A., South, N., & White, R. (Eds.). (2016). Environmental crime and social conflict: contemporary and emerging issues. Routledge.
  • Goyes, D. R., Mol, H., Brisman, A., & South, N. (Eds.). (2017). Environmental crime in Latin America: The theft of nature and the poisoning of the land. Springer.
  • Goyes, D. R. (2019). Southern green criminology: A science to end ecological discrimination. Emerald Publishing Limited.
  • Goyes, D. R. (2023). First, they took the land: decolonizing nature to decolonize society. In The Routledge International Handbook on Decolonizing Justice (pp. 413-422). Routledge.
  • Lynch, M. J., & Stretesky, P. B. (2016). Exploring green criminology: Toward a green criminological revolution. Routledge.
  • South, N., Brisman, A., & Beirne, P. (2013). A guide to a green criminology. In Routledge international handbook of green criminology (pp. 43-58). Routledge.
  • Sollund, R. (2008). Global Harms. Ecological Crime and Speciesism. New Nork: Nova science publishers.
  • Sollund, R., Tønnessen, M. og Larsen, G. (red) 2013. : Hvem er villest i landet her? Oslo Spartacus SAP.
  • Ellefsen, R., Sollund, R. og Larsen, G (red). (2012/2016). Eco-global crimes: Contemporary problems and future challenges. Routledge.
  • Sollund, R. (Ed.). (2016). Green harms and crimes: Critical criminology in a changing world. Springer.
  • Sollund, R., Stefes, C. H., & Germani, A. R. (Eds.). (2017). Fighting environmental crime in Europe and beyond: The role of the EU and its member states. Springer.
  • Sollund, R. A. (2019). The crimes of wildlife trafficking: Issues of justice, legality and morality. Routledge.
  • Sollund, R. A., & Lie, M. S. (Eds.). (2024). Criminal Justice, Wildlife Conservation and Animal Rights in the Anthropocene. Policy Press.
  • Stretesky, P., Long, M., & Lynch, M. (2013). The treadmill of crime: Political economy and green criminology. Routledge.
  • van Uhm, D. (2023). Organized Environmental Crime: Black Markets in Gold, Wildlife, and Timber. Bloomsbury Academic.
  • White, R. (Ed.). (2012). Climate change from a criminological perspective. Springer Science & Business Media.
  • White, R. (2013). Crimes against nature: Environmental criminology and ecological justice. Willan.
  • White, R. (2018). Transnational environmental crime: Toward an eco-global criminology. Willan.
  • White, R., & Heckenberg, D. (2014). Green criminology: An introduction to the study of environmental harm. Routledge.
  • White, R. (2013). Environmental harm: An eco-justice perspective. Policy Press.

Selected courses

Contact information

See also