Peter Head CBE - Board Chair

Executive Chairman of The Ecological Sequestration Trust

Peter Head CBE joined Arup in 2004 to establish and lead their planning and integrated urbanism team. Peter is recognised as a world leader in the sustainable development of cities and lectures all over the world. He is project director for Dongtan and other Eco City projects in China. Peter is also a strategic adviser to the Chair of the C40 Large Cities and Climate Leadership Group and the Clinton Carbon Positive Programme. Peter spent his early career at the forefront of steel bridge technology and in 1998 was awarded an OBE for his work. This year Peter was awarded a CBE for services to Civil Engineering and to the Environment.

In 2008, he received the prestigious Frank Little Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineers for his outstanding and sustained contribution to innovation in environment which has contributed to the well-being of Britain.

From 2002, Peter spent seven years as a Commissioner on the London Sustainable Development Commission. There he was a member of the group that drafted the new Sustainable Development Framework for London and led an initiative to create a voluntary code of practice for sustainable planning, design and construction.

Peter is also one of five independent advisors to the Singapore Government on sustainable development.

Peter has been heralded as one of Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment and one of the Guardian newspaper’s 50 global eco-heroes.

Richard Brook - Board Deputy Chair

President – AIRTO
Founding Director – E-Synergy

Richard is a founder director of E-Synergy Ltd, an early stage venture capital business which has a growing portfolio of activities in business angel investing, early stage fund management and investment readiness training. E-Synergy is a Carbon Trust Incubator Partner with an associated stream of incubation activities for which Richard is responsible. He is currently working with a number of companies in this regard that show significant business potential in the context of the UK’s carbon reduction targets.

He was formerly the Chief Executive of the Sira Group of Companies and is the current President of AIRTO. His career spans over 40 years in research and development in sensors, measurement, instrumentation and related technologies such as optics, imaging and displays for industrial manufacturing, space and defence applications. Richard has extensive involvement with leading technology organisations in the US and Europe including the European Commission and the European Space Agency.

Richard holds degrees in Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and Engineering from Bristol and London Universities. He is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Mathematician and a Fellow of the Institutes of Measurement and Control and Engineering and Technology. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was appointed OBE in 2004.

June Barnes

Group Chief Executive at East Thames Group

June Barnes trained as a town planner and is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.  June has been Group Chief Executive at East Thames Group for 12 years growing the Group from around 7,000 homes when she arrived to nearly 14,000 currently, and the income base from £35million to just under £100million. East Thames Group works only in east London and Essex and provides housing for people on low incomes and for people with care and support needs and a range of social programmes aimed at raising aspirations and creating opportunities.

She has previously worked for a number of housing bodies focussing on housing development and regeneration, housing services and resident involvement.  She has an active interest in creating sustainable communities and has been particularly concerned about how to create sustainable high density housing developments.

She is currently a Board member of the National Housing Federation, Chair of Stratford Renaissance Partnership.  She has served on a number of Boards over the years concerned with the built environment and poverty and was Chair of the London Sustainable Development Commission for 2005-8.  She was recently a member of the public lands work stream of the London Mayor’s Housing Investment Task Force.

Professor Brian Collins

Chair of Engineering and Interdependency Expert Group for Infrastructure UK and Professor of Engineering Policy at University College London

Professor Brian Collins took up the position of Professor of Engineering Policy at UCL in August 2011. Prior to that he was the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) from October 2006 and CSA for the Department for Business innovation and Skills (BIS) from March 2009 after being CSA in Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) from May 2008, during which time Energy policy was in his remit. He left both positions at the end of May 2011.  

He is also currently chairing an Engineering and Interdependency Expert Group for Infrastructure UK, led by Lord James Sassoon, Commercial Secretary in Her Majesty’s Treasury.

He was bestowed by Her Majesty the Queen the Honour of Companion of the Bath (CB) in the 2011 New Years Honours list. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009, and is Vice President of the British Computer Society.

 Brian is an Emeritus Visiting Professor at City University London, a visiting professor at Wollongong University, NSW, Australia and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Kingston University.

 He was educated as a physicist at Oxford University, from where he also holds a D.Phil in astrophysics.

Isabel Dedring

Deputy Mayor, Transport - Greater London Authority

Isabel Dedring is the Deputy Mayor, Transport and is responsible for providing policy advice and direction, setting priorities and taking decisions relating to transport issues on behalf of the Mayor.

She has spent five years working for London Government as the Mayor of London’s environment adviser where she was responsible for a full range of environmental issues including climate change mitigation & adaptation, urban greening, low carbon vehicles and waste. Prior to this, Isabel was Director of the Policy Unit at Transport for London and before that as Chief of Staff to the Transport Commissioner. This included producing London's Climate Change Action Plan, the first plan by a city to lay out detailed, quantified policies and programmes for attaining a set of ambitious CO₂ targets.

Isabel has degrees in law from Harvard and is a qualified lawyer; previous work experience includes four years in management consulting and several years working with environmental NGOs and inward investors in Kazakhstan.  

Professor David Gann CBE

Deputy Principal, Research and Business Engagement, Imperial College London

David Gann CBE founded Imperial College’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group one of the world’s leading departments in its field, cited in the recent UK Research Assessment Exercise for its excellence in research. It hosts research programmes with funding of more than £30m, including: the EPSRC Innovation Studies Centre; EPSRC/ESRC/AIM Innovation and Productivity Grand Challenge; ESRC/AIM UK Innovation Research Centre (with Cambridge); the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Group collaborates closely with large and small firms in design, manufacturing, engineering, construction, IT and healthcare industries.

David has deep experience in industry, starting new businesses and advising on government policy. He is responsible for innovation strategy at Laing O’Rourke plc, the UK’s largest privately owned construction and civil engineering group.

David co-founded the Think Play Do Group, an Imperial College spin-out specialising in innovation strategy and management. He was innovation advisor to the Computer Science Corporation, and advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister’s Construction Taskforce. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer with a PhD in Industrial Economics. David was appointed CBE in 2010 for services to engineering.

Elliot Lipton

Managing Director – First Base

Elliot Lipton is the founder of First Base established in 2002. First Base is an urban development and investment company, which is focused on building thoughtfully designed, high quality and sustainable homes and workspaces to create local communities. Key major regeneration projects include: the London Wide Initiative to increase the supply of key worker housing as part of the regeneration of Elephant and Castle and the delivery of affordable homes at Stratford City (Athletes Village).

As a recognised industry figure, Elliot is actively involved with influential organisations and events including the GLA “London Leaders” programme and representing First Base as a founding member of the UK Green Building Council.

Steve Mahon

Chief Investment Officer - Low Carbon Accelerator

Steve Mahon co-founded Low Carbon Accelerator (LCA), a leading specialist clean technology venture capital fund that mainly invests in early stage companies. Steve is the Investor Director representing LCA on the Boards of Sterling Planet, Quantasol, RLtec, Vaperma and EcoSolids International.

His successful career spans over 15 years. Steve has an outstanding track record for selecting, investing and managing over 25 high growth low carbon companies, both in the private and public markets.

Prior to joining LCA, Steve was on the main Board of Pursuit Dynamics plc, during which time it was the top performing small cap engineering stock on AIM. He was also a Board Member of Sentec Ltd, a smart grid technology specialist that became one of the fastest growing technology companies in Europe.

Steve started his career at Qinetiq where he managed a specialist business unit commercialising smart materials technology. He has a first class degree and PhD in Geophysics and Planetary Physics.

Jonathan Maxwell

Founding Partner and CEO – Sustainable Development Capital LLP

In 2007, Jonathan Maxwell co-founded Sustainable Development Capital LLP. Through the process of developing sustainable investment projects, Jonathan has worked with a broad range of key stakeholders such as central and local Government departments in the UK and China, universities and institutes, NGOs, engineers, architects and specialist consultants as well as financial institutions.

Jonathan is a member of the Advisory Council to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Green Economy Initiative. He also serves on the Advisory Council for the Clinton Climate Initiative Climate Positive Development Programme.

Over the past two years, Jonathan has worked on the design and financing of innovative investment vehicles such as the HSBC Environmental Infrastructure Fund, the EEPIC China Energy Efficiency Fund and the Pegasus Sustainable Century Initiative. He was previously a Director of Business Development for HSBC’s real estate and infrastructure investment arm.

Jonathan has a degree in Modern History from Oxford University.

Liz Peace

Chief Executive – British Property Federation

Liz Peace became the CEO of the British Property Federation in 2002 following a long career in the Ministry of Defence, most recently as Director of Corporate Affairs in the technology agency that became QinetiQ. Liz was awarded a CBE in the 2008 New Year Honours list for services to the property industry.

She has helped to change the Government’s perception of the commercial property industry, and as a result dissuaded Government from legislating commercial leases, secured innumerable changes to planning and tax legislation and, working as part of a pan-industry alliance, persuaded the Government to introduce REITs.

Most recently Liz played a key role in achieving the abandonment by the Government of their plans for a Planning Gain Supplement. She is currently campaigning for the re-instatement of Empty Property Rates Relief and for other measures that would support the industry through the current downturn, while at the same time helping it to provide more resource efficient buildings.

Professor Alan Penn

Dean of the Bartlett faculty of the Built Environment, University College London

Alan is the Dean of the Bartlett faculty of the Built Environment, a HEFCE Business Fellow and a founding director of Space Syntax Ltd, a UCL knowledge transfer spin out with a portfolio of over 100 applied projects per year, including whole city masterplans, neighbourhood development plans and individual buildings. He is a member of the Space Group, an EPSRC Platform funded research group.

He was the founding Chair of the RIBA's Research and Innovation Committee, and served in that role until 2006. He was Chair of the Architecture & the Built Environment sub-panel 30 for the UK National Research Assessment Exercise 2008, and a member of its Main Panel H. He is the Chair of the Architecture, Built Environment and Planning sub-panel 16 and a member of Main-panel C for the Research Excellence Framework 2014. He was the lead academic on the £5m Urban Buzz: Building Sustainable Communities knowledge exchange programme which promoted more sustainable forms of urban development and intensification in London and the greater South East Region of the UK.

Alan was Principle Investigator on the City History and Multi-scale Spatial Master-planning UK-China Research Network, 国际研究网络：城市历史与多尺度的空间整体规划, funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which develops UK-Chinese academic research collaboration. He is a trustee of the Shakespeare North Trust.

Professor William Powrie

Dean of Engineering and the Environment – Southampton University

William Powrie is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the School of Civil Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton. His main technical areas of interest are in geotechnical aspects of transport infrastructure, and sustainable waste and resource management.

He is Principal Investigator for Rail Research UK, a universities-based centre for Rail Systems Research that is looking to improve the sustainability, attractiveness and environmental performance of railways.

Professor Powrie’s work in waste and resource management focuses on landfill science and engineering, and on the development of a sound scientific basis for policy and practice. He leads a major EPSRC-funded research programme, Science and Strategies for the Management of Residual Wastes.

Professor Powrie is a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Waste Working Group; and chair of the Technologies Advisory Committee for Defra's £30m programme of research and demonstrator projects for new technologies for the treatment of biodegradable waste.

Keith Riley

Managing Director – Veolia Environmental Services

Keith Riley is Managing Director of Veolia Environmental Services (UK) and has extensive experience in leading recycling and waste management business, particularly those working with local authorities.

As well as Veolia, Keith is a non-executive Director of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and Chairman of the Major Projects Committee. He is also a Trustee of the Resource Recovery Forum and the Veolia Environmental Trust.

Prior to joining Veolia, he worked within both large and small companies, including holding senior positions in some blue-chip engineering companies such as Babcock and Rolls-Royce, where he gained extensive experience working overseas.

Keith holds a degree in engineering from Queen Mary College, University of London, and in social sciences from the Open University. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Member of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer.