Rhona has over 30 years experience working in climate change, sustainable development and place making in the public, private, academic and charitable sectors. She joined CAG Consultants as a Partner in 2020 after 10 years running her own sustainable development and regeneration consultancy business. Rhona particularly enjoys working with collaborative, cross-sectoral teams to find ways to address the wicked issues we face in tackling climate change and creating places that are good both for us and for nature. She specialises in evidence based approaches to climate change mitigation/adaptation and low carbon development/regeneration. Areas of expertise include qualitative socio-economic/environmental research, stakeholder engagement, whole place approaches to place making/low carbon planning, skills development, community energy and research that influences both policy and practice. Rhona also undertakes research and teaches in the following areas with Newcastle University: low carbon energy, climate change and regeneration. Her work has been recognised at a national level, having been invited to No 10 to advise on community energy and regeneration and and provide case studies to the No 10 Policy unit. She was awarded a PhD from Newcastle University for research on whole settlement approaches to energy self-sufficiency in rural communities and is an Associate at Newcastle University, working on research projects such as:xTerritories and low-carbon economies https://www.espon.eu/sites/default/files/attachments/Locate_final-report_main_report.pdfHow Businesses thrive in peripheral towns published by Civitas: https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/helpingbusinessesthrive.pdf;Supporting rural communities in Europe develop sustainable tourism plans through the Interreg Rural Growth programme.
Listed skills include Sustainable Development, Rural Development, Policy, Stakeholder Engagement, and 16 others.
