Biography
Rachel McEwen is Chief Sustainability Officer at SSE. Rachel joined SSE in 2007 and has been responsible for sustainability, including its climate change strategy, since 2013. Since being a member of the original Just Transition Commission, Rachel has engaged extensively with SSE’s shareholders and stakeholders on strategies and actions the company must take to deliver fairness as the company continues its transition to net zero. As a result, SSE became the first company in the world to publish a Just Transition Strategy outlining 20 principles to support people and communities in the decarbonisation journey and latterly published a Just Transition: From Principles to Action report. SSE was assessed in the World Benchmarking Alliance Just Transition report in November 2021 as being the most developed high emitting company in the word according to its Just Transition indicators. Rachel is also a non-Executive Director of Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, the SSE subsidiary that owns and operates the electricity distribution and transmission networks in the north of Scotland. External to SSE, Rachel pursues a series of social justice issues and was Chair of the Leadership Group of Living Wage Scotland between 2014 and 2018 and is a Board member of both the Fair Tax Foundation and the Poverty Alliance. She has a first degree in Applied Economics and a Masters in International Political Thought.