John is Professor of Energy and Climate Policy in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. He joined the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) at Leeds in February 2011.

Background

John is currently the Director of the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (CIE-MAP) (more information available at www.ciemap.ac.uk). CIE-MAP is a large research centre funded through the Research Council Energy Programme to understand how to reduce energy demand. Working closely with government and industry, the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products conducts research to identify all the opportunities along the product supply chain that ultimately deliver a reduction in industrial energy use.

In addition, John is a Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, the multidisciplinary research centre established through the Research Council’s Energy Programme. He leads a research theme called “Energy, Economy and Society” which explores the relationship between economic growth and energy demand.

He was one of the lead advisors to Defra in relation to the development of PAS2050 and was commissioned by Defra to lead on understanding the carbon footprint of trade.  He was selected as a lead author for the IPCC 5th Assessment for Working Group III.  John has appeared regularly on Radio 4 news and discussion programmes and has written numerous policy reports on SCP issues for a wide range of audiences.

Research interests

• Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) modelling;
• Carbon accounting and exploring the transition to a low-carbon pathway;
• The use of Multi-Regional Environmental Input-Output modelling to understand the effectiveness of strategies and policies to deliver a low-carbon economy.