Claire O'Neill (PhD, MSc) is a lecturer in marketing and ethics at Cork University Business School, UCC. Her teaching and research interests are in the area of macro-marketing and sustainability. Her research focus/projects are linked to SDG 12 and focuses on sustainable consumption / sustainable consumer behaviour. Claire’s research philosophy focuses on multidisciplinary, impactful real-world focus, and future-oriented scholarship.

She is currently (2025-2027) a research partner on a Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine research project in colloboration with Teagasc, EMIT CHANGE: Explaining Climate Change Mitigation Uptake Behaviour Change Dynamics: Farmers’ Attitudes, Motivations, and Barriers. She is co-PI on a UCC SATLE project PEER PhD Ethics Engagement & Resources that seeks to increase research ethics compliance across PhD programmes and improve student confidence and leadership in ethical research. Additionally, she is involved in another SATLE project with CUBS colleagues that looks at Business Students as Change Agents: A Volunteer-Based Approach to SDGs connecting student skills to local charities and NGOs. 

 She was CO-PI on H2020 ERA-NET SUSFOOD2 funded PLATEFORMS project (2018 – 2021)‘Sustainable Food Platforms: Enabling food practices through socio-technical innovation’. The research consortium was multidisciplinary from Arts, Social Sciences, Economics and Marketing, focused on food sustainability and partnered with researchers from 4 European countries: Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy. The project was funded in Ireland by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM). Her responsibilities included all organisation and management matters in collaboration with CO-PI, including but not limited to supervision of Post Doc; supervision of research student; planning, organisation, recruitment and execution of data collection; planning and execution of dissemination artefacts; and writing and submission of peer-reviewed paper(s) and a peer-reviewed book chapter. PLATEFORMS produced in-depth knowledge on how food practices in the home are affected by new innovations in food provisioning platforms across all 5 European countries.

Claire was part of an interdisciplinary team from College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS), College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences (CACSSS) and College of Business and Law (COBL) who secured a funded MSc project via UCC Green Campus Living Laboratory Seed Fund, (2019- 2020). Claire was academic supervisor for this MSc thesis on ‘Plastic-Free UCC’- Exploring Societal and Marketing Levers. She has also collaborated with Green- Schools Ireland (a Foundation of Environmental Education (FEE) programme, known internationally as Eco-Schools) which aims to develop and maintain sustainable behaviours among primary and secondary schoolchildren.

Claire teaches across a variety of different levels in the University including executive education, postgraduate and undergraduate, including the supervision of MSc research projects/thesis and undergraduate work placements and PhD supervision. She has a proven track record of collaborations on peer-review papers and conference papers (national and international), and responsible for a number of public webinars with key stakeholders on various projects. She is Chair of SREC, the university's ethics review committee for social research and co-Chair of CUBS ERS (Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability) committee.

Claire holds a BSc. from University College Cork (2007), an MSc. from Dublin Institute of Technology (2009) and a PhD from University College Cork (2015).

Claire’s research interest is in marketing, ethics, and sustainability, with a particular focus on the lived experience of sustainability. Current research focuses on the ethics of consumption, behaviour change at consumer and farmer level, social marketing and researching children’s perspectives on sustainability. Other interests include advertising ethics, CSR and the changing face of sustainability in modern business. 

Claire teaches on both undergraduate and postgraduate modules including some of the following: BU2002 Responsible Leadership and Communication; MG5005 Marketing Ethics and Sustainability; MG6415 Ethics and Sustainability; MG6835 Corporate Social Responsibility.