Dr Freya Wise

Personal statement:

I am an ESRC Research Fellow at the University of the West of England (UWE) and a Visiting Fellow at The Open University (OU). I completed my interdisciplinary PhD at the OU in 2022 on: Carbon reduction and heritage retention: retrofitting approaches for vernacular buildings and their residents. I have subsequently worked at London South Bank University and The Open University conducting research on retrofit service design and heat pump uptake respectively. I have been involved in work with the National Retrofit Hub, LETI, and Historic England. My research focusses on carbon reduction from existing buildings through interdisciplinary approaches.

Key topic areas of research or interest:

My research focusses on various aspects of carbon reduction from existing buildings and considers both technical aspects such as building performance and how this is assessed in standard models as well as social aspects such as the views, values and behaviours of the people who use buildings and the barriers that they encounter to carbon reduction. I am interested in the embodied and whole life carbon of retrofit. My research looks at bringing all these aspects together to create holistic solutions to improve the built environment and tackle climate change. I am also interested in working with policymakers.

Collaboration opportunities:

Interested in collaborating with academics, professionals and policy makers on carbon reduction from existing buildings. I am particularly interested in research and work that has practical and real world value. Interested in discussing media work, commissions and consultancies.

Publications:

Retrofit information challenges and potential solutions: perspectives of households, retrofit professionals and local policy makers in the United Kingdom (2025) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103866. Energy Research and Social Science

A Transdisciplinary Engineering and Systems Approach for Decarbonizing UK Home Heating (2024) https://doi.org/10.3233/ATDE240880 IOS Press

Embodied carbon and building retrofit: a heritage example (2023) dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003277927-24 Routledge

Residents’ comfort perceptions in domestic heritage buildings (2022) https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1085/1/012024 IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science

Low carbon heritage: residents’ views from Cumbria and the English Lake District World Heritage Site (2022) https://www.baufachinformation.de/eehb-2022-post-prints/bu/22109003312. EEHB 2022

Is it all about the windows? Residents’ values in residential heritage buildings (2022) https://doi.org/10.14311/APP.2022.38.0592 ACTA Polytechnica Proceedings

Reducing carbon from heritage buildings: the importance of residents’ views, values and behaviours (2021) https://doi.org/10.1080/13556207.2021.1933342 Journal of Architectural Conservation

Rethinking retrofit of residential heritage buildings (2021) https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.94 Buildings and Cities

Considering embodied energy and carbon in heritage buildings – a review (2019) https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/329/1/012002. IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science