Louise Sunderland is managing principal within RAP’s European program, sharing responsibility for the overall direction and management of RAP’s work in Europe with the European Program Director. Louise is an expert in demand-side energy policies and energy justice, with 15 years’ experience working on energy efficiency, buildings decarbonization, energy pricing and energy poverty.
Louise leads our work in Europe on ensuring the energy transition benefits lower income and otherwise excluded households, supporting the whole team to fulfil this aim. She also leads RAP's ongoing work to support the introduction of minimum energy performance standards, which are regulations to improve the performance of existing buildings, both at European and national level. Throughout her career, Louise has worked closely with industry, the nonprofit sector and policymakers on clean energy transition policy development, most recently for the UK Green Building Council. She is an external expert for the European Commission and has served as an expert witness to provide evidence to the United Kingdom’s House of Lords. Before moving into the energy field, she spent her early career working in international development and community development.
Sunderland earned a master of science from Imperial College London in environmental technologies and received the BP Prize for Strategic Thinking. She also holds a master of arts and an undergraduate degree in English.
How Louise Sunderland is Energizing Change
Will EU’s buildings directive bring benefits for low-income households?
Louise Sunderland highlights that flexible household energy use is pivotal to the energy transition. The Energy Performance… Read More +
Lowering flow temperatures is key in the switch to efficient clean heat
Two important factors are advancing the shift to clean heating in Europe: First, the fossil gas crisis… Read More +
How did you catch the “energy” bug?
I started my career in international development and only turned to energy in my late 20s. While retraining through a Master’s in Environmental Technologies I caught the energy bug. I recognised at that time that clean energy was the greatest sustainability challenge we faced. I now also recognise that access to adequate and clean energy sources underpins basic human rights and well being, marrying the goals of my early career with my current work.
What is something that makes you feel hopeful about the future?
The thing that makes me most hopeful about the continued progress of the clean energy transition is the rapidly expanding ecosystem of groups and organisations working in support. Organisations that are more usually focused on social issues than energy issues are bringing important voices. I also feel lucky to be working alongside people from much more diverse backgrounds and with different experiences and perspectives than ever before. This is the route to better solutions and outcomes. The energy sector has a lot more to do but I am encouraged by the recent progress.
My favourite thing to eat is beer and crisps. The beer should preferably be bitter, not lager. The crisps should be cheese and onion (or salt and vinegar with lager).