Stephen Allen

Dr. Stephen Allen is a lecturer and engineer working in the fields of whole life carbon, life cycle assessment (LCA) and energy-systems analysis.  His research focuses on radically reducing the carbon footprint of the built environment, by tackling both embodied and operational emissions.  Current collaborative projects include:

• £36m Active Buildings Centre
• £18m UK Energy Research Centre
• €7m Circular Biobased Construction Industry
• Supervising PhD researchers on whole-life carbon assessment of buildings, experimental development of sustainable construction materials, and energy storage

Stephen has professional experience in both policy and commercial environments. During 2010-12 he worked as the Scientific Adviser on Energy at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), informing and influencing energy and climate policy. In 2012-18 he was a senior consultant at Sustain and then director at Circular Ecology. He led projects for companies with turnovers greater than £10bn to measure and reduce the environmental footprint of buildings, rail transport and consumer products. He has also worked as an engineer in remote parts of Canada and Mexico, designing and building equipment and accommodation to support field research.

His publications have been used by parliament, government and the Committee on Climate Change to inform policy, and by professional magazines to influence practice in industry.  He has won the prestigious George Stephenson Medal from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (for best original paper), and a place on the USA’s International Visitor Leadership Programme on climate change and renewable energy.  He is conversationally fluent in Spanish.

Interested in supervising students studying:

• Low energy and low carbon design of buildings
• Sustainable building materials
• Sustainable energy technologies
• Thermodynamics and heat transfer
• Carbon footprinting
• Life cycle assessment