Board of trustees

Brenda is an Emeritus Fellow at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute following her retirement in 2008 as head of its Lower Carbon Futures team. Her main research focus is on energy efficiency and the way that energy is used in British homes, particularly by low-income households. She considers the economic, social and technical aspects of the subject and her work has a strong policy emphasis. Indeed, she has been a member of the DTI's Energy Advisory Panel and is widely viewed as one of the most experienced in her field. Her second book, Fixing Fuel Poverty: Challenges and Solutions, was published by Earthscan at the end of 2009. She was awarded an MBE in 1998 for her work on energy issues and joined CSE's trustees in 2002.

Peter has worked in the sustainable energy field for over 20 years, including seven years as Chief Executive of the Centre for Sustainable Energy. Since resigning in 2002 due to family illness, Peter has worked as an independent sustainable energy consultant providing research, technical & policy support and community partnership guidance and delivery for a wide range of private, public and voluntary sector clients at local, regional and national level.

Currently Peter is working with NESTA on understanding and disseminating the learning from their Big Green Challenge for communities. He is also a judge for the Ashden Trust’s UK Sustainable Energy Award, a technical assessor for the EDF Energy Green Fund, a director of Regen SW and was until recently chair of the Education and Community Working Group of the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes. He still represents the sector on the Partnership’s steering group. Peter has an MSc in Energy Resource Management.

As a director of Quattro Design architects, Robin specialises in working with local communities in the fields of health, education and housing, and is currently looking into the ways in which sustainability can play a part in social housing developments. Robin studied Architecture at Bristol University, worked for the Department of the Environment, a housing association and a number of local architectural practices before becoming a founding director of Quattro. He became a CSE trustee in 1984 and was chair until 1992.

Andrew has been involved in wind energy as a chartered engineer for more than 28 years, starting with the Wind Energy Group in 1979. He founded Garrad Hassan in 1984, which has grown to become a world-leading wind energy consultancy with offices in 16 countries. He is a past chairman of the British Wind Energy Association, a board member of the European Wind Energy Association, a member of the Strategic Advice Team of the Science and Engineering Research Council, a board member of the Tyndall Centre.

In 2006 he won the EWEA Poul la Cour Prize for outstanding personal achievement in wind energy. He became a CSE trustee in 1996.

Cheryl is the Director of Sustainable Energy Delivery at Regen SW where she works with planning authorities and renewable energy developers to improve planning policy and practice in the region. Before joining Regen SW, Cheryl worked as an environmental policy adviser for the South West Regional Assembly, where she worked on the development of the Regional Environment Strategy, undertook research into Strategic Environmental Assessment and was responsible for working with planners to improve policy and practice on environmental issues. 

Cheryl has a first class BSc in Geography and Applied Economics (1997-2000) and an MSc in Sustainable Environmental Management (2001) from the University of Plymouth.

Peter is Policy Director of Sustrans, creators of the National Cycle Network. In addition he is chair of trustees of Transition Network which supports communities working to create and implement an energy-descent action plan in reaction to the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil. Peter has been a CSE trustee since 1996 and became chair in 1999.

Catherine Mitchell is Professor of Energy Policy in the Geography Department of the University of Exeter. She has worked previously in the Centre for Management Under Regulation at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick; the Energy Group of the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex; and the Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley.

From 1998-2003 she was a member of the Government’s Energy Advisory Panel; in 2001 she was seconded to the Cabinet Office to work on the PIU Energy Review; and in 2000 she was the renewables representative on the DTI/DETR/Ofgem Embedded Generation Working Group. She is currently responsible for policy and regulation within the infrastructure and supply theme of the UK Energy Research Centre, 2004-9.

She is an advisory board member of various sustainable energy bodies, both nationally and internationally. Her areas of interest include energy and climate change policy, sustainable energy, distributed generation and economic regulation. She joined CSE's board of trustees in 2002.

Colin has been active in the renewable energy field since 1978. He managed a project to develop wave energy systems before becoming marketing director of Composite Technology, the company that pioneered the use of wood composites for wind turbine blade manufacture in the UK. In 1998 he founded Windcluster Ltd, one of the first wind energy development companies in the UK. In 1995 he joined Wind Prospect, a company specialising in smaller-scale wind energy developments, and became their director in 1997. Wind Prospect was presented with a Beacon award in 2008. Colin has been a CSE trustee since 2000.

Chris is a principle engineer with France Telecom / Orange specialising in radio network architecture and off-grid solar power solutions for telecoms infrastructure in the emerging market. He is also European editor of The Oil Drum, the Internet’s most popular weblog studying energy security and policy and regular speaker on energy security.

Chris has a degree in Computational Physics, has studied energy systems and at post graduate level, environmental decision making with the Open University. He is currently on sabbatical from France Telecom studying towards a master’s degree in Earth System Science with the University of Bristol.