Dr Paul Brockway

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds in 2015 as Research Fellow, before promotion to Senior Research Fellow in 2017. I was awarded in 2018 a 5 year EPSRC Early Career Fellowship exploring energy-GDP decoupling, became an Associate Professor in 2022 and began in 2025 a 4 year Leverhulme project entitled “Impacts of green growth and degrowth pathways using societal exergy analysis”. 

My transition to the area of exergy economics started in 2002 with a 2 year placement with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), and later in 2006-2009 I undertook a 3 year distance learning MSc in climate change and sustainability. My background is as a structural engineer, before moving to work in corporate sustainability, especially using a consumption-based approach to carbon accounting. In 2012 I left my consulting background to undertake a full-time PhD in Ecological Economics at the University of Leeds, which I completed in 2016.

Responsibilities

• School (SEE) Director of Post Graduate Research Studies

Research interests

My research is focussed on studying macroeconomic energy-economy interactions, exploring the underestimated role of energy in economic growth and the impacts of future energy transition pathways, through the lens of societal exergy analysis. Exergy is considered as 'available energy', and enables the study of the energy conversion chain from primary to final to useful stages - where it is lost in exchange for energy services.

My work spans various energy-economy fields, including societal exergy analysis, energy rebound, the role of (thermodynamic) energy efficiency on economic growth; energy return on investment (EROI).  I work within an network of international researchers in the field of exergy economics, and act as one of the conveners of this network, which has an outward facing website here: https://exergyeconomics.wordpress.com/

My current programme of work includes a 4 year Leverhulme project entitled “Impacts of green growth and degrwoth pathways using societal exergy analysis”, which applied an Exergy Economics approach (combining thermodynamics, energy analysis and economics) to assess energy-emissions-economic impacts and implications of current economic ‘green growth’ and alternative ‘energy degrowth’ pathways, at a global and case study country level, which aims to buld momentum and insights from recent research – including my own – to complete world leading exergy-based research into the upcoming energy transition and assess the energy, economic and emissions implications. Key areas to explore in my research include:

• Q1. What is the relationship between energy efficiency and energy rebound?
• Q2. How much primary energy will we need in the future to meet our energy service demands?
• Q3. To what extent can we decouple primary energy use from GDP

Areas for PhD supervision

I welcome queries on PhD projects (including self- and government-funded students) on topics such as

• societal exergy analysis;
• energy-economy modelling;
• energy-role in economic growth;
• limits to growth;
• sociomacroeconomic impacts of the renewables-based energy transition;
• energy return on investment (EROI) and net energy analysis

• EPSRC Fellowship - Applying thermodynamic laws to the energy-GDP decoupling problem

Qualifications

• PhD Ecological Economics
• MSc Climate Change and Sustainabilty
• MEng Engineering Science

Professional memberships

• International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE)

Student education

I teach energy-focussed climate change mitigation topics (energy demand reduction, renewables and GHG emissions sequestration) across a range of undergraduate and masters courses.

Research groups and institutes

• Sustainability Research Institute
• Energy and Climate Change Mitigation
• Economics and Policy for Sustainability

Current postgraduate researchers

• Sam Betts-Davies
• Zihong Chen

Projects

<li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2202-impacts-of-green-growth-and-degrowth-pathways-using-societal-exergy-analysis:-country-level-case-studies">Impacts of green growth and degrowth pathways using societal exergy analysis: country-level case studies</a></li>