John Barrett is a Professor in Ecological Economics at the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), University of Leeds. John’s research interests include sustainable consumption and production (SCP) modelling, carbon accounting and exploring the transition to a low carbon pathway. John has an extensive knowledge of the use of Multi-Regional Environmental Input-Output modelling to understand the effectiveness of strategies and policies to deliver a low carbon economy. These key areas of research have involved the building of global trade models to understand the embodied carbon emissions in goods and services and estimating the upstream carbon emissions from emerging energy technologies.
John leads one of the research themes for UKERC on ‘Energy, Economy and Society’ that examines interactions between the UK energy system and the UK economy and examines the potential implications on policies, markets and prices and affordability. As well as his role in UKERC, John is also the co-director of the UK INDEMAND Centre. The centre, funded jointly by the UK’s Energy Programme, Government departments and industry partners, considers how changing our use of materials and products can deliver substantial energy demand reduction in the UK.
John has advised or supported a number of government departments including DECC, Defra and the CCC. John provides the UK Government with one of their headline indicators, the Consumption-based GHG emissions of the UK. John was one of the lead advisors to Defra in relation to the development of PAS2050. John was a lead author for the IPCC 5th Assessment for Working Group III. John has appeared regularly on Radio 4 news and discussion programmes and written numerous academic papers and policy reports on economy / energy / environment issues. John is also a member of Climate Strategies, a not-for-profit organisation that provides world-class, independent policy and economic research input to European and international climate policy.