DrCarl Desouza

Dr Carl Desouza is a researcher specialising in real-world air quality emissions measurement, emissions inventory development, alternative fuel evaluation, and decarbonisation pathways for Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM). Based within the Environmental Research Group (ERG) at Imperial College London's Centre for Low Emission Construction (CLEC), his research sits at the intersection of environmental science, public health, and applied engineering — generating evidence that directly informs national and international policy, regulatory frameworks, and industry practice.

Dr Desouza completed his PhD at King's College London in 2021, titled "Characterizing Non-Road Mobile Machinery through Portable Emissions Testing and Emissions Inventory Development", supervised by Prof. David Green and Prof. Sean Beevers. Since joining Imperial, he has developed an increasingly independent research portfolio, contributing to funded programmes totalling over £2.3 million as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigator (Co-I), spanning government departments, major infrastructure programmes, and international bodies.

His research has generated direct, measurable impacts at the highest levels of national and international policy. Outputs have contributed to updates in both the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) and the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI); informed procurement and fleet strategy across HS2, the UK's largest infrastructure project; and led the world's first retrofit of an emissions abatement system on a large-scale piling rig, independently certified by the Energy Saving Trust. Research findings have directly informed the Department for Transport (DfT), Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on NRMM emissions and decarbonisation policy, and prompted the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to undertake a formal review of hydrogen safety standards, a direct consequence of outputs from the CAGE BEIS RDR programme.

Dr Desouza is recognised internationally as a specialist in NRMM emissions and decarbonisation. He has provided expert evidence to the Government of Colombia, resulting in the in-country adoption of clean NRMM emission standards, and has contributed specialist expertise to international projects in Nigeria, the USA, and South-East Asia through engagements with Data Carbon Partners (DCP) and Emissions Analytics. He has been appointed as a material witness and industry expert by JCB, the world's leading manufacturer of hydrogen combustion engines for the construction sector, to evaluate and provide expert guidance on novel hydrogen combustion technology.