Speakers

  • GEARÓID LANE

    Director of British Gas New Energy

    Gearóid Lane directs the teams leading British Gas’ drive to offer microgeneration and energy efficiency products to households and businesses. He also leads British Gas' business activities providing energy services to public sector housing, and the Pay As You Go Energy business that retails energy to almost 2.5 million prepayment customers.

    Mr Lane is a Chartered Gas Engineer, holds a Master’s degree in Engineering Science and a First Class Honours primary degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Ireland (University College Galway) and an MBA from Henley Management College.

    He is a Director of the Energy Saving Trust and the Energy Retail Association and also served for several years as a member of the Renewables Advisory Board, an independent body sponsored by Department of Trade and Industry, which provides advice to Government on a wide range of renewable energy issues.

    GEARÓID LANE

  • MAGDI BATATO

    Group Technical & Production Director, Nestlé UK & Ireland

    Magdi Batato was appointed Technical & Production Director for Nestlé UK & Ireland in 2009. Magdi joined Nestlé Switzerland in 1991 as an Engineering Specialist. He was later appointed Head of Production in a MAGGI factory in Germany before managing a mineral water factory in Lebanon in 1997. In 1999 he was appointed Technical Manager for both Lebanon and Egypt in Nestlé Waters. In 2001 he was appointed Factory Manager in South Africa, prior to his transfer to Malaysia in August 2004 as Executive Director, Production.

    Magdi, a Swiss national, graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from the Federal Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1982 and obtained his Doctorate in Sciences Techniques from the same institution in 1988.

    Magdi Batat

  • DR JONATHAN FOOT

    Chief Environment Officer, EDF Energy

    Jonathan has spent the last four years working for EDF Energy to ensure the Company’s Environmental and Sustainability ambitions can be proactively and consistently embedded throughout all operations and activities. Jonathan works closely with the regulators, government departments and key stakeholders such as Business in the Community, LOCOG to support the development of safe, affordable and low carbon energy.

    From 2004 and 2006 he worked for Centrica Energy (CE) and ensured they could meet the requirements of the newly introduced EU Emission Trading Scheme. He has also held a variety of policy roles within Government agencies and has contributed to the implementation of the EU Emission Trading scheme, Large Combustion Plant Directive and Habitats Directive.

    Dr Jonathan Foot

  • MALCOLM FERGUSSON

    Head of Climate Change, Environment Agency

    Malcolm Fergusson is Head of Climate Change at the Environment Agency. He leads the head office team dealing with both mitigation and adaptation policy. He was formerly a Senior Fellow at the Institute for European Environmental Policy, an independent policy institute. He has a background in computer modelling and forecasting, but now specialises in climate change, energy and transport policy issues in the UK and Europe. He was a peer reviewer of the IPCC Second Assessment Report, and in the UK, he has acted as Specialist Adviser on climate change to a House of Commons Select Committee, and contributed to the national Energy Review.

    Malcolm Fergusson

  • TONY GRAYLING

    Head of Climate Change and Sustainable Development, Environment Agency

    Tony Grayling is head of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at the Environment Agency, leading on cross-cutting issues including sustainable communities, climate change and planning. He was previously a special adviser to David Miliband and Hilary Benn at DEFRA, helping to conceive and design the Climate Change Act 2008. From 2002 to 2006 he was an associate director and head of the sustainability team at the Institute for Public Policy Research, which he joined in 1999 as a research fellow. He was a special adviser to the Minister for Transport, Gavin Strang, from 1997-98 during the development of the 1998 integrated transport white paper and before that a researcher successively to Labour MPs Ron Davies and Anne Campbell. Educated at Thorpe St Andrew School, Norwich and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University he has a PhD in plant sciences.

    Tony Grayling

  • RT HON HILARY BENN MP

    Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

    Born in 1953, Hilary Benn attended Holland Park Comprehensive School and received a degree from the University of Sussex in 1974. He served for 20 years on Ealing Borough Council, becoming the youngest ever Chair of the Education Committee and Deputy Leader of the Council.

    In June 1999, he was elected as Member of Parliament for Leeds Central. In June 2001, he was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development. Between May 2002 and May 2003, he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Community and Custodial provision at the Home Office. In May 2003 he was appointed as Minister of State for International Development and in October that year was made Secretary of State for International Development. He also served as the Prime Minister’s Africa personal representative.

    Hilary Benn MP was appointed as Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs on 28 June 2007.

    Hilary Benn MP

  • LORD DRAYSON PhD

    Minister of State for Science and Innovation

    Lord Drayson was raised to the peerage as Baron Drayson, of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in May 2004. In May 2005, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and Minister for Defence Procurement and became a Government Spokesman for Defence to the House of Lords. In March 2007, he was promoted to become Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, serving until November 2007. Lord Drayson was also appointed as Minister of State for Business and Regulatory Reform at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, serving between June 2007 and January 2008. In November 2007, he took a leave of absence from the Government to compete in the American Le Mans Series in the United States.

    In October 2008, he returned to Government and was appointed as the Minister of State for Science and Innovation, taking up a seat in the Cabinet and becoming a member of the Privy Council in November of that year. In June 2009, Lord Drayson took on additional responsibilities as a Minister at Defence.

    Lord Drayson

  • JOHN BEDDINGTON

    Government Chief Scientific Adviser

    Professor John Beddington was appointed as Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) on 1 January 2008. John's main research interests are the application of biological and economic analysis to problems of Natural Resource Management including inter alia: fisheries, pest control, wildlife management and the control of disease. He started his academic career at the University of York and spent three years on secondment from York as a Senior Fellow with the International Institute of Environment and Development. He has been at Imperial College since 1984, where he headed the main departments dealing with environmental science and technology. He was Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial until his appointment as GCSA.

    He has been adviser to a number of government departments, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (on Antarctic and South Atlantic matters), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (where he chaired the Science Advisory Council), the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. He was for six years a member of the Natural Environment Research Council.

    He has acted as a senior adviser to several government and international bodies, including the Australian, New Zealand and US Governments, the European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. In June 1997 he was awarded the Heidelberg Award for Environmental Excellence and in 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2004 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George by the Queen for services to fisheries science and management.

    John Beddington

  • GARRY CHARNOCK

    Chartered Engineer and Executive Director of the RSK Group,

    Garry Charnock is a chartered engineer and Executive Director of the RSK Group, and also the instigator of the Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral Project - a community-led initiative that is trying to help this small Cheshire community to become England's first carbon neutral village. The project has reduced the village carbon footprint by 23% and attracted widespread support from the local community, businesses and Government. The village has links with over 100 like-minded communities around the globe and has featured in the 2007 Live Earth rock concert, the Financial Times and TV, radio and news media worldwide. In 2007 the project won the IVCA Clarion Award for Climate Change Communications and the Energy Institute ‘Community Award’. The project is also cited as an exemplar in the UK Government’s July 2009 White Paper on Climate Change.

    Garry Charnock

  • ROY ALEXANDER

    RSK Professor of Environmental Sustainability, University of Chester - England

    Roy is a geographer whose 30-year research and teaching career has covered a range of environment and landscape issues and currently focuses on impacts and responses to climate change in Cheshire, England and Almería, Spain. He is technical advisor to the award-winning Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral project where he runs the annual carbon footprint survey in order to monitor the village’s carbon budget. He has worked with other community groups and has been involved in the production two toolkits for community action on climate change. He regularly gives presentations and advice to voluntary groups, local, regional and national government on community carbon reduction. He is currently working on a feasibility study for the installation and operation of a renewables-powered rural microgrid using Ashton Hayes as a test-bed.

    Roy Alexander

  • WILL DAY

    Chair of the Sustainable Development Comission

    Will Day spent twenty years or so working with a range of relief and development NGOs (Save the Children, OXFAM, and Opportunity Trust) initially involved in large scale humanitarian responses in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. He was involved in the establishment of Comic Relief, and was responsible for setting up its grants programme for Africa as Grants Director. As well as involvement in the production of Comic Relief’s television and radio documentaries, he spent time as a producer and presenter for the BBC World Service for Africa. He was CEO of CARE International UK between 1996 and 2004.

    As well as being Chair of the Sustainable Development omission, he has a range of roles which include:
    Special Advisor to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Senior Associate of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, where he is a faculty member of the Prince of Wales’s Business and Environment Programme, as well as participating in CPSL’s other Senior Executive Education programmes held in the UK, Capetown, Nairobi, Abuja and Salzburg.
    Chairman of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a non-profit company bringing together private sector and NGO member organisations to pursue the Millennium Development goal for water and sanitation in the poorest parts of the world.

    Sustainability Advisor to Pricewaterhouse Coopers UK.

    He sits on the Board of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI): and was until recently the Chairman of the BBC Children in Need Appeal, and an independent assessor for the public appointments process of the DCMS.

    Will Day

  • PHIL WYNN OWEN

    Director General for National Climate Change and Consumer Support

    Phil Wynn Owen has been appointed as the DECC Director General for National Climate Change and Consumer Support, with effect from mid-July.  He is responsible for driving the transition to a low carbon economy with help for those who need it most.

    Phil is also Deputy Chairman and a Non-Executive Director for the Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.

    Before joining DECC, Phil was Director General Strategy, Information and Pensions in DWP, responsible for department-wide strategy across DWP and strategic policy development in Government pensions policy. He was responsible for the Government’s Public Service Agreement (PSA) combating poverty and promoting security, savings and independence for today’s and tomorrow’s older people.    He was also Chair of the DWP Shared Services Board. 

    Phil was previously the Director responsible for the Financial Sector in the Treasury, and before that the Director of the Regulatory Impact Unit in the Cabinet Office.  Previous jobs in the Treasury included Team Leader roles responsible for Tax Policy and Tax and Budget, when his work included green taxation, and Transport Teams.  He was also Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary from 1991 to 1993, and Assistant Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1984 to 1986.  He has an MBA from London Business School, and recently completed the Advanced Management Programme (AMP) at Harvard.

    Phil Wynn Owen

  • SARAH MMUKHERJEE

    BBC Environment Correspondent

    Sarah Mukherjee has been a journalist and broadcaster for 17 years. Having taken the traditional route through local radio and regional television, she worked as an environmental specialist for GNS, the department that provides national and international news for the 38 BBC local radio stations across the country. She joined the presenting team of "Farming Today" four years ago, and a little later became the environment correspondent for BBC News 24, moving to include radio and television bulletins a couple of years later. She is a regular, award-winning contributor to BBC Radio 4's the Today Programme, The Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2, as well as the One, Six and Ten O Clock television news bulletins and the BBC's website. She has secured a number of world exclusives, including the first interview for more than a decade with the Prince of Wales, in which he described climate change as one of mankind's biggest challenges.

    Phil Wynn Owen

  • SEAN BRENNAN

    London Council’s Executive Member for Sustainability

    Councillor Sean Brennan became Leader of Sutton Council in October 2002. He is one of Sutton Council’s most experienced members having first been elected in 1986, and with the exception of a four-year term from 1994-98, has served ever since. He has been a member of all major Council committees, including a period as Chair of the then Education Committee from 1991-93. He was also Chair of the Sutton Area Committee from 1998-2001 and has also served as Lead Councillor for Community Engagement. Councillor Brennan is Leader of the Lib Dem Group on London Councils and a member of the Executive with a sustainability champion brief.

    Councillor Sean Brennan

  • GREG BARKER

    Shadow Climate Change minister

    David Cameron appointed Greg Barker as Shadow Minister for Climate Change & Environment in December, 2005. Greg accompanied David to the Arctic in March 2006, to highlight the dangers of global warming and has since been working closely on Climate Change and wider environmental policy, his policy paper "Power to the People" advocating a radical increase in the use of decentralised energy, greatly informed the Conservative Party policy paper of the same name, published in November 2007.

    Greg lead the passage of the Climate Change Bill through the House of Commons in 2008 and was a key author of the Conservative Party’s ‘Low Carbon Economy’ green paper, launched in January 2009.

    In October 2008 he was promoted to Shadow Climate Change minister in the new Shadow Department of Energy and Climate Change.

    Greg Barker