Dr Joel Millward-Hopkins

Profile

Over the past 7 years my research has (consciously) meandered its way from scientific aspects of decentralised renewable energy – which were the focus of my doctorate – to investigate and develop methods of financing low-carbon transitions, of measuring and mitigating the carbon footprints of cities, and for performing integrated social, economic and environmental assessments of resource recovery systems.

In all these cases, I have endevoured to approach these problems with a view to the critical impacts of social and political norms and different modes of governance, in particular the limitations of neoliberal governmentality. I thus attempt to combine environmental science and engineering with an understanding of the myriad of social, political and cultural factors that act in opposition to an effective and sufficient response to the scale of contemporary environmental challenges.

My research interests are thus highly diverse, ranging from the technical aspects of carbon accounting and scenario analysis, to the dangers of socio-economic lock-in, the role of the civic sector in low-carbon transitions, and the potential for behavioural psychology to realise cities' carbon mitigation potentials.

PhD, Renewable Energy Meteorology, University of Leeds (2009 - 13)

MSc, Energy and Environment, University of Leeds, (2008 - 09)

Research groups and institutes

• Sustainability Research Institute