Role
Dr. Rachel Macrorie is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Construction and Retrofit (CSCR), in the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment (ADBE).
She is a critical urban and environmental geographer whose broad research agenda focuses on the governance, politics and practices of urban transformations to decarbonised and equitable economies and societies.
Her research spans multiple urban domains; primarily the built environment, but also, energy and heat, water and waste services, and digital, platformised, and robotic infrastructures. She researches across multiple governance levels (from national government to the individual landlord and housing tenant) and works with diverse types of stakeholders (public institutions, private industry and the third sector).
Career overview
Academic experience
Rachel joined the Centre for Sustainable Construction and Retrofit (CSCR) as a Research Fellow in September 2024. Prior to this, she held research and teaching contracts at The Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University), the Department for Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) and The Urban Institute (University of Sheffield).
Her PhD in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia (UEA) examined the politics, governance and design, and post-occupancy resident experiences of the (former) Code for Sustainable Homes standard at a UK social housing development.
During her PhD Rachel spent two months at RMIT University, Melbourne which informed her conceptual contribution to knowledge on ‘systems of practice’. Rachel holds an MSc. in Sustainability: Business, Environment and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from the University of Leeds (Pass with Distinction) and a BSc. in Biology focused on Ecology and Environmental Politics (First Class) from the University of Nottingham.
Practitioner experience
In a previous life, Rachel worked as an environmental due diligence and compliance consultant for an international environmental consultancy. In this role, she conducted audits of blue-chip firm industrial sites and supported the implementation of Environmental Management Systems.
Research areas
Rachel’s current research is concerned with evaluating UK Government commitments to address the overlapping housing, economic and climate and energy crises by transitioning to a New Green Deal and Net Zero Economy and Society. She is interested in the question of how these grand challenges are being tackled within the context of austerity government, devolution, diverse stakeholders, and a fragmented and under-skilled industrial supply chain. Her work addresses such questions at the local/regional, national, European and international scale.
Rachel’s particular research interests centre around the built environment in relation to: (1) the politics and governance of sustainable and affordable housing development and equitable place-making, (2) housing energy retrofit for warm, secure and safe housing for all, and (3) ensuring a just transition, quality employment and suitable skills in the housing and renovation sectors.
Current research projects in which Rachel is involved include:
- 'Factory Homes: The role of advanced manufacturing in tackling the housing crisis'
- HERMISS: Home Energy Repair Maintenance & Improvement Sector Skills
Rachel has published over fifteen articles in peer-reviewed international journals, book chapters and policy reports, including: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Energy Policy, Global Environmental Change, City, Ambio and Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
She is primarily a qualitative social science researcher and is interested in a range of conceptual/analytical frameworks and research methods, including: workshops, focus groups, interviews, and policy and documentation analysis.
External activity
- Member of the National Retrofit Hub Working Group 3: Workforce Growth and Skills Development (ongoing)
- Co-lead of the Earth System Governance: Urban Working Group (2020-2024)
- Secretary of the Energy Geographies Research Group: Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) (2023-2024)
- Joint contributor of written evidence to the ‘Heating our Homes’ Committee: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) (2023)
- Committee Member: South Yorkshire Regional Retrofit Steering Group (2023-2024)
- Project investigator for ‘Empowering women for sustainability research: A structured interdisciplinary Early Career Researcher writing retreat’ (2019)
- Co-author of ‘Urban Robotics and Automation: Critical challenges, international experiments and transferable lessons for the UK’, EPSRC UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems (UK-RAS) Network White paper (2018).
- Peer reviewer for multiple international academic journals
- Contributor to The Conversation and The Independent Online
Publications
Accessible via orcid.