Dr Michael Peters

Michael Peters is a lecturer in Energy Policy in the Built Environment within the School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading. He has over fifteen years’ experience of research and teaching focusing on sustainable waste and energy management and community-level sustainability initiatives for tackling the complexities of climate change locally. A particular area of interest surrounds the opportunities and challenges for engaging citizens in less wasteful more sustainable routine practices and the infrastructural policy and support mechanisms required from local government and other stakeholders in enabling effective design and delivery.

Current work includes collaborative research with Trinity College Dublin investigating co-design and co-creation in community-level sustainability initiatives (two journal articles from this work have been published in Local Environment in 2018) and collaborative research with the University of St Thomas Minnesota examining community renewables and ‘shared solar’ schemes.

Michael is currently first supervisor for three PhD students, two of whom are investigating urban transport in the Philippines, and another examining renewable community energy in UAE.

The results of his research have been published widely as journal articles (examples include papers in Energy Policy, Sustainability, Carbon Management, and the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management), book chapters, conference papers and two edited collections (one of which Michael was lead editor for – ‘Low Carbon Communities’ published by Edward Elgar Ltd. in 2010). Prior to joining Reading in 2012 Michael worked in the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey for six-and-a-half years, and before that spent nine years at UEA, the first three of which involved working for his PhD on improving the environmental performance of small and medium sized enterprises.