Senior Management Team

Simon has been helping people, organisations and policy-makers to develop effective responses to the threat of climate change and the misery of cold homes for more than 20 years.

 He became CSE's Chief Executive in 2002 after two previous spells at CSE punctuated by five years running Friends of the Earth's national energy campaign and senior management roles at the leading European ethical bank, Triodos Bank.

In the past year, Simon has been involved in CSE'­s work on:

• improving community engagement with renewable energy planning and development
• establishing new frameworks for assessing and improving local authority performance on cutting carbon emissions
• analysing the social distribution of household energy consumption and carbon emissions
• assessing the role of community initiatives in mobilising individuals to tackle climate change
• examining the issues associated with personal carbon trading

Simon is currently a member of the Government'­s Renewables Advisory Board, the DECC English Regions Energy Policy Group, the Advisory Board for the ESRC Centre on Research on Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE) at the University of Surrey, and Ofgem'­s Consumer Challenge Group. He is a board director of the SW England sustainable energy agency, Regen SW, and of Triodos Renewables Plc, a renewable energy investment fund. He chairs the board of Energy Advice South West Ltd, a charity-owned joint venture which delivers the Energy Saving Trust advice centre across the South West.

Simon began working in sustainable energy in 1985 as a volunteer for Bristol Energy Centre, a trading company of the Urban Centre for Appropriate Technology, as CSE was then known. He soon took up the role of coordinating the Centre's energy advice service and developed its energy awareness training.

Simon then moved to Friends of the Earth (FoE), where he spent five years leading its national energy campaign, developing in particular its work on renewables and energy efficiency. He co-authored FoE's ground-breaking report, Getting Out of the Greenhouse, in 1989 which included the UK's first carbon emissions abatement cost-curve. He then moved into more practical work as Business Development Director for The Energy Club. With the demise of this innovative energy services company, he set up and led his own energy consultancy, Energy Initiatives.

During his four years as Commercial Manager and Head of Personal Banking for Triodos Bank, Simon arranged renewable energy project finance, acted as Managing Director of its renewable energy investment fund, and oversaw the first share issue of The Ethical Property Company Plc.

Simon has a BA (Hons) in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the Energy Institute in 2007.

simon.roberts@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1441

Sarah joined CSE in February 2008 in the new role of Head of Advice, Education and Community Initiatives. Her previous job was as the National Co-ordinator for Food Links UK and she has worked in project development and management in the sustainable development sector for 11 years.

Sarah has extensive experience of working in and with the voluntary and community sector as well as six years as part of the public health team in the NHS. Her last eight years have been focused on developing sustainable food systems, initially working at a local level in East Sussex before moving on to lead the national initiative, Food Links UK.

Throughout her career Sarah has worked to engage people in the sustainability agenda and ensure community involvement and ownership. This has included the development of education and awareness programmes, supporting the establishment of grassroots community projects and campaigns, community-led estate regeneration initiatives, running public consultations and youth work.

Sarah has direct practical experience of partnership working at a local, regional, national and international level. She has recently stepped down from being a Director of AlimenTerra, a European network of organisations working on Sustainable Food Systems, where she led on the delivery of a European wide food and tourism project.

Sarah is also an experienced fundraiser. In her last post for Food Links UK she secured £2.6m as part of a national consortium, launching two national programmes on 'local food supply and distribution'­ and 'food coops and buying groups'­. Whilst working for the NHS she secured £1m for the establishment of a Food and Health Programme, which she then managed.

Sarah has an MSc in Food Policy.

sarah.davies@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1436 | View Sarah's team

Sarah has many years' experience of office and financial management, initially employed by Bristol Energy Centre, the trading company of the Centre for Sustainable Energy in 1993.

Together with the Chief Executive, she has responsibility for the financial management of the organisation. She is ultimately responsible to the trustee body, reporting to them at quarterly finance meetings. As one of the senior management team, she is involved with the strategic development of the charity.

Sarah has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Bristol and a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management from the University of the West of England.

sarah.frankish@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1444 | View Sarah's team

Sarah is currently on maternity leave.

Sarah joined CSE in June 2005 and is currently on maternity leave. Sarah'­s current role sees her managing and developing the three strands of the team; advice provision to householders, engagement with community groups and education of young people both inside and outside of school. Her role focuses on managing her team, budgetary management, project development and contributions to CSE'­s communications and publicity.

In her previous role at CSE, Sarah demonstrated extensive experience in developing and managing projects to engage all sections of the community in new and innovative ways. This includes the transition to the new model of advice delivery on behalf of the Energy Saving Trust and developing and fostering relationships with other third sector organisations to deliver effective fuel poverty advice.

Sarah graduated from the University of Manchester with a BA in English Language and Literature in 2000. Since then, Sarah has gained over 8 years of experience of working in the third sector. Previous roles include a fundraising and grant management role at Help the Aged and a project management role at the British Heart Foundation, managing aspects of a £1m specialist nurse project.

sarah.jeffrey@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1431 | View Sarah's team

Simon joined CSE in February 2007. He has extensive technical expertise of renewable energy systems and over 20 years consultancy experience.

Simon leads CSE’s technical expertise and is responsible for maintaining CSE’s national reputation for delivering technically robust sustainable energy initiatives, advice, training and consultancy services. Simon and his team ensure that all of CSE’s work is informed by an understanding of relevant technical matters.

His role includes directing a programme of activities with the planning community to raise awareness of, and disseminate information about, renewable energy and relevant Government policy and planning processes. Delivered on behalf of the DECC and CLG, the programme provides workshops for planners, councillors and inspectors on the technical and planning aspects of different renewable energy technologies. It has also developed a network of experts to offer advice to the planning community, and has built a Planning Renewables website, which contains a ‘resource bank’ of relevant policy and technical information.

He has also managed the South West Bioheat Programme, which assisted both private and public clients to install large-scale biomass heating plant across the South West of England. By engaging the most promising schemes and offering individual tailored help (in areas such as site feasibility, system specification, fuel negotiations, funding applications, planning liaison and site visits) the programme supported more than 30 sites for biomass wood fuel installation. It is currently on target to deliver an additional 30-40MW of installed capacity, which would nearly double the South West’s installed renewable heat capacity.

Simon supervised the Coordinated Woodfuel Initiative, which is assisted both individuals and community groups to install small- and domestic-scale biomass heating system across the South West of England.

He has also provided the technical and policy content of a university-based training package to help qualifying and existing planners and development control officers in London promote and develop responses to climate change. This was developed for the London Energy Partnership with the aid of London Boroughs of Haringey, Islington and Merton.

His role has also included delivering advice to a major house builder on options for energy efficiency and renewable energy in a significant new housing development in Worthing; examining the role of energy service companies (ESCOs) in reducing CO2 emissions in the UK, particularly looking at the opportunities and barriers faced by ESCOs in relation to microgeneration and low carbon energy; and reviewing the costs and financial incentives involved in “green” building and in particular those involved in, the predecessor of the Code for Sustainable Homes, the EcoHomes assessment method.

Simon holds an MSc in Environmental and Energy Studies from the University of East London (at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth). The focus of his research was on low-carbon buildings and renewable energy solutions. In his previous career as a management consultant with KPMG and Capgemini, Simon played a leading role in delivering both large- and small-scale consultancy projects. For example, in the telecoms sector he designed and managed a £10m project which enabled a new mobile phone company to launch in the UK. Similarly, in the financial services sector he developed a blueprint for an innovative trading solution for a consortium of international banks. Over the course of his 20 plus year career in the industry Simon worked with many of the leading technology and service providers to design and implement innovative solutions.

simon.lewin@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1411 | View Simon's team

Janine has been Head of Development at the Centre for Sustainable Energy since May 2000 and oversees all new project development and fundraising within the charity, from conception of a project idea to practical delivery. 

Since joining CSE she has helped to diversify the range of funding sources for CSE's work which now span government departments, the energy industry, local government, charitable grants, lottery programmes and consultancy contracts. She was also instrumental in the set up and early development of the Energy Saving Trust'­s Community Action for Energy (CAfE) programme, now Green Communities.

Janine has been involved in energy efficiency and sustainable energy issues since the early 1990s. Prior to joining CSE, she worked for a range of sustainable energy organisations, including a private energy consultancy, the Building Research Establishment and the former Energy Efficiency Office of the Department of the Environment. She has been involved in the design of major national energy efficiency grant schemes, national public awareness campaigns and raising energy standards within building regulations. She has also worked with local authorities, energy rating companies, major house builders and building societies to help deliver higher energy efficiency standards in new and existing housing.

Janine has an MSc in Energy Conservation and the Environment, and a BSc in Maths.

janine.michael@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1414 | View Janine's team

Joshua has extensive experience of research in the fields of renewable energy, energy policy-making and energy strategy. Before coming to CSE as Head of Research, he was first Strategy Adviser and then Principal Policy Officer with regard to energy at the Greater London Authority, where he was involved in managing and designing a wide range of research and implementation projects around themes of renewable energy deployment, energy efficiency and fuel poverty.

Joshua'­s experience includes:

• researching, collating, mapping and presenting energy and CO2 emissions data for use in the Mayor of London'­s Energy Strategy
• analysing the effects of various energy policy scenarios in relation to climate change
• providing energy expertise in planning negotiations and decisions
• leading on policy input into the development of the Climate Change Agency
• developing, fundraising and managing a London-wide study of the opportunities for community heating and CHP through biomass

A tangible example of Joshua's success in integrating the results of sustainable energy research projects into mainstream work of local energy developers and planning authorities, is the fact that 11 of the 36 London Boroughs now have energy planning policy documents based on work that Joshua pioneered between 2000 and 2005.

Joshua holds an MSc in environmental technology (specialising in energy policy) and a BSc (Hons) in chemistry. He has previously lived and worked in France and the USA, where he researched issues related to petroleum resource depletion and climate change.

joshua.thumim@cse.org.uk | 0117 934 1439 | View Joshua's team