Assessing sustainability: The good, the bad, and the ugly of Life Cycle Assessment

Rachael is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering, Director of the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre, Co-Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, Co-Director of the UK Hub for Research Challenges in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels and Academic Lead for Sustainability at the University of Sheffield.

She is a thought leader in sustainability, regularly engaging with policy makers, the media and the public. Her research expertise lies in development and analysis of sustainable processes and systems. She has a background in large scale hydrogen production and carbon dioxide utilisation and has more recently worked on the sustainability of Foundation Industry processes, plastics and packaging. Rachael leads projects that take an interdisciplinary, whole systems approach to developing routes to net zero and zero waste, combining insights from engineering, psychology, linguistics, sociology and the physical and biological sciences. She leads LCARSIN, the network set up to improve harmonisation in life cycle assessment and its use to inform policy decisions as we move to a net zero future.