Dr. Walsh is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, having joined the university in 2017. He does not consider himself a subject specialist in the strictest sense, having worked in areas as diverse as sports science and naval architecture. Ostensibly he works within the areas of resource (and carbon) accounting and lifecycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economics. Prior to joining the university, he served as a research associate/fellow in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, based in the University of Manchester. During this period, he worked on diverse projects on issues relating to low grade heat in industry, the emissions of the UK and Global shipping sector, and comparing marine fuel cycles.

He took part in a consortium project involving several universities such as UCL and University of Strathclyde, and was involved in diverse activities including economic modelling, shipping system modelling and lifecycle assessment. During this period he sat on the special emissions working group of the IMarEST (Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology). He led the development of detailed trade scenario for climate changes futures which integrated econometric, material flow analyses and the outputs of integrated assessment models. This work demonstrating the trade-offs of decarbonisation of the global economy and shipping amid increased bio-energy trade. During this time, he was also involved in numerous teaching and outreach activities, mostly at MSc level, teaching on the operationalisation of the sustainability concept.

Shortly after arriving at the university He has led the MSc ‘Global Environmental Change’ which is framed around the land water energy and food nexus, as well as leading modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, on subjects such as use of indicator species and carbon accounting. Since arriving at the University, His research work has shift to agricultural systems, which is fitting as he undertook PhD research, in on the Ecological Footprint, a well-established, land-based indicator of sustainability. (This was done as part of a research agenda setting processing involving practitioners around world, including the concepts founder).

As a member of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) He been involved in diverse research activities with an agronomic focus, including the EU funded value chain analysis for analysis (VCA4D) programme as well other projects examining the impact of coffee cultivation (collaborating with colleagues in Costa Rica and Guatemala) and the development of climate smart agriculture (CSA) decision tool in collaboration with Syngenta foundation. Specifically, he has led a Defa funded LCA project involving Rothamsted research, University of Surrey and London Southbank University. This project involves undertaking a lifecycle assessment of a ‘foodbasket’ of a range of different commodities. This world demonstrates important trade-offs in terms of competing interests such as reducing the environmental burden and increasing the animal welfare of specific livestock systems. In a mentoring capacity, he routinely advises colleagues as thy work towards obtaining teaching qualifications. He is frequently involved in media appearing having spoken on BBC radio on issues relating to climate change and has been quoted in The Times on issues relating to climate change education. He is supervising PhD projects across such varied topics as value chain shocks, building design and evolving climate activism.

• Walsh, C., Haggar, J., Cerretelli, S. and Van Oijen, M., 2025. Comparing carbon agronomic footprint and sequestration in Central American coffee agroforestry systems and assessing trade-offs with economic returns. Science of The Total Environment, 961, p.178360. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.178360)

• Walsh, C., Renn, M., Klauser, D., De Pinto, A., Haggar, J., Abdur, R., Hopkins, R. and Zamil, F.(2024) Translating Theory into Practice: A Flexible Decision-Making Tool to Support the Design and Implementation of Climate-Smart Agriculture Projects. Agricultural Systems, 219, p.104060 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2024.104060)

• Walsh, Conor  , Mander, Sarah and Larkin, Alice (2017) Charting a low carbon future for shipping: A UK perspective. Marine Policy, 82. pp. 32-40. ISSN 0308-597X (Print), 1872-9460 (Online) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.04.019)

• Walsh, Conor  and Mander, Sarah (2016) Contextualising the drivers for trade: Some lessons from historical case studies. Marine Policy, 75. pp. 290-299. ISSN 0308-597X (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.04.004)

• Mander, Sarah, Walsh, Conor  , Gilbert, Paul, Traut, Michael and Bows, Alice (2012) Decarbonizing the UK energy system and the implications for UK shipping. Carbon Management, 3 (6). pp. 601-614. ISSN 1758-3004 (Print), 1758-3012 (Online) (https://doi.org/10.4155/cmt.12.67)

• Walsh, Conor  and Thornley, Patricia (2012) A comparison of two low grade heat recovery options. Applied Thermal Engineering, 53 (2). pp. 210-216. ISSN 1359-4311 (Print), 1873-5606 (Online) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2012.04.035)

Dr Walsh is a member of Ecosystem Service’s research group and his research interests involve the quantification of environmental burdens and services associated with human activities and comparing them with alternative metrics. Recent work comparing the carbon footprint and economic performance of Coffee farms in demonstrates the challenge/prerequisites for achieving both carbon neutrality and economic viability.

Often such work can be accepted into other tools such sector or agronomic models. For example, the LCA work on marine fuels was used as input for a sectoral energy model, which demonstrated how incompatible Grey Hydrogen was with wider decarbonisation efforts for global shipping.

Throughout his research career Conor has either utilised or developed different tools with applicability at different scales. Recently (2024) my involvement in the development of a simple climate smart agriculture (CSA) decision aid tool is intended to aid scaling up CSA interventions by allowing project level perspectives to contribute to a portfolio-scale view and in doing so, contribute to portfolio level design. This is helpful in operationalising the CSA concept and demonstrating how meeting the triple objectives of productivity, adaptation and mitigation is especially challenging at smaller scales.

Conor leads the programme MSc Global Environmental Change.

Within this programme he leads the module AGRI-1302 ‘Environmental Footprinting’.

He also teaches on the following MSc level modules:

• ENVI-1096 Research Methods for postgraduates 
• ENVI-1170 Fundamentals of Meteorology and Climate Change
• ENVI-1196 Climate Change, Food Security and Sustainable Development
• AGRI-1048 Independent Research Project

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Commodity Production; Identifying Opportunities for Sustainable Productivity Growth Across the Agri-Food Chain.

A comparative LCA exercise that aims to quantify the environmental burden of different commodities. This is important as trade-offs between different commodities occur across different impact types. The results suggest driver of impacts that are relevant for UK food policies such as the trade-off between environmental and welfare objectives and how cycles of seasonal production for commodities consumed year-round may offshore and concentrate important environmental burdens such as water scarcity.

Climate Smart Outcome Methodology

This project developed a simple tool for assessing the relative performance climate smart agriculture (CSA) initiatives. This was undertaken in order to inform portfolio design and assessment as part of process of co-creation. The application of which at workshops demonstrated important trade-offs between profitability and other CSA pillars, notably the challenge in facilitation both adaptation and mitigation at the farm level.

• Programme Leader - MSc. Global Environmental Change

• Dr Walsh provided data in support of sustainable travel campaign designed to encourage use of the inter campus bus.

• Dr Walsh regularly mentors colleagues who are applying for fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

• Faculty representative within a validation committee for 2 programmes offered by Hadlow Agricultural college.

• External PhD Examiner for University of Manchester and Newcastle.