Writing & Talks
What I have said in public, and where.
A selection rather than a list: the addresses, evidence, papers and roundtables that best show how I think about delivering a sustainable future. Each links to the original where one exists.
Selected
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History, science and engineering a sustainable future
IChemE Presidential Address, London
Five hundred thousand years of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a brewery in Epsom, Arrhenius, and two ways the profession might be remembered in a hundred years. The case that time, and the rate of change, is what matters now.
President
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A flexible grid for the future
Oral evidence, House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
Evidence on what it takes to get storage, demand flexibility and local generation built at the pace the grid needs, drawn from delivering battery storage and public-estate projects.
Witness
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Transition risk and resilience
Westminster Energy Forum, UK Energy & Climate Resilience Review
Chaired the session on the derailment risks to the UK's transition and the options for building resilience into it, with speakers from government, networks and investors.
Chair
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Engineering a Sustainable World: Bristol City Leap
ITN Business, with IChemE
A short film on the £1 billion, twenty-year partnership between Bristol City Council and Ameresco, and what a city-scale decarbonisation partnership looks like in practice.
Featured
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Net Zero: a systems perspective on the climate challenge
Royal Academy of Engineering, National Engineering Policy Centre
The founding paper of the Academy's net zero programme, setting out why decarbonisation has to be treated as one system rather than a list of sectors. I sat on the working group from its launch.
Working group
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How can engineers contribute to achieving a more sustainable world?
Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, Westminster
Led the Institution's session in Parliament on engineering's role in sustainability, deindustrialisation and the skills the UK will need, with IChemE member Chris McDonald MP among the speakers.
Lead speaker
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How cities can create market opportunities for net zero
Carbon Crunch 2025, London
Panel on what an outcome-based city partnership asks of the public and private sides, drawing on Bristol City Leap.
Panellist
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Optimising the UK's demand side and deploying strategic customer solutions
Westminster Energy Forum, Annual UK Energy Transition Review
Why reducing and flexing demand on public and commercial estates is the cheapest capacity the system can buy, with the Ameresco UK portfolio as the evidence.
Speaker
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Investing in the planet
UNFCCC official side event, COP22, Marrakech
Representing IChemE at the UN climate conference on how engineering investment turns climate commitments into delivered projects.
Speaker
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Engineering solutions for national climate and energy targets
UK Government Pavilion, UNFCCC COP23, Bonn, with the IChemE Energy Centre and Future Climate Engineering Solutions
Speaking at the launch of the Energy and Climate Planning to 2050 framework on how chemical engineers' systems thinking applies to the water, food and energy nexus, and the opportunity to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions.
Speaker
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IChemE at COP29
UNFCCC COP29, Baku
Represented the Institution as an official observer, presenting its climate change briefing and technical challenge report to governments, universities and industry bodies.
Representative
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Energy and Resource Efficiency Good Practice Guide
IChemE Energy Centre
A practical guide for engineers and organisations on reducing energy and waste, written by a volunteer task group I led over three years.
Task group lead
Roundtables chaired for IChemE
As Deputy President and then President I used the Institution's convening power to bring engineers, regulators, academics and government into the same room on questions where chemical engineers have something particular to say.
| Date | Roundtable | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 2025 | Reskilling in engineering, with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers | IChemE · IMechE report |
| Jan 2025 | Cybersecurity in critical national infrastructure | IChemE |
| Dec 2024 | Progress on the government's clean energy mission, House of Commons, hosted by Chris McDonald MP | IChemE Matters |
| Nov 2024 | Barriers to industrial decarbonisation | Summary |
| Dec 2023 | Battery energy storage systems: as safe as houses? | Summary · TCE |
Royal Academy of Engineering policy work
I have been a member of the National Engineering Policy Centre's Net Zero Working Group since it was formed in 2020, representing IChemE, and now sit on the Academy's Clean Power Advisory Working Group. Outputs below are the group's; my own name appears where noted.
| Date | Output | Credit | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2025 | Low-carbon fuels for shipping and maritime transport | Named reviewer | NEPC |
| 2021 | Rapid "low regrets" decision making for net zero policy | Named member | Paper |
| 2021 | Net Zero Explained, video series | Working group | |
| Jan 2021 | Response to the Science and Technology Committee inquiry on the role of hydrogen | Working group | Response |
| 2020 | Decarbonising construction: building a new net zero industry | Working group | Paper |
| Nov 2020 | Beyond COVID-19: laying the foundations for a net zero recovery | Working group | NEPC |
| May 2020 | Net Zero: a systems perspective on the climate challenge | Named member | Paper |
Also
- Engineering a Sustainable Future, inaugural lecture as Honorary Professor of Engineering, University of Exeter, 11 November 2025
- Expert reaction to the Met Office amber and red extreme heat warnings, Science Media Centre (comment)
- The most important engineers you've never heard of, IChemE film (watch)