The role of the ENWORKS Board is to provide leadership, to set clear and challenging goals, to scrutinise what we do and, ultimately, to influence the environmental business agenda in the North West.

Since its establishment in 2001, membership has continually evolved as the environmental and business agenda has changed.

Having senior level representation from a wide range of stakeholders gives us access to a broad range of knowledge, skills and networks, ensuring that our work is embedded within the North West’s infrastructure and strategies.

The independence of the board has also been crucial to our success, enabling us to put the interests of the North West as a whole, rather than those of any one organisation, to the forefront of the agenda.
 

Clive Memmott, Chair of ENWORKS Board and Chief Executive, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce

Clive has chaired the ENWORKS Board for four years. In addition to his role as Chief Executive of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce he is currently a member of the British Chambers of Commerce board, Chairman of the commercial arm of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Stoneleigh Park Ltd, and a non-executive Director of Brockholes Enterprises Ltd, the commercial company of the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire Ltd.

Clive is also a trustee of the National Football Museum, Vice Chairman of Preston College, and an honorary research fellow of Lancaster University Management School. He co-authored ‘Growing your own Heroes’, a book about improving business performance through effective and practical employee engagement.

After qualifying as a lawyer, Clive enjoyed a successful career in both industry and the public sector, holding senior positions in the Hepworth, Steetley and Redland Groups and as Managing Director of Tate Access Floor Systems, before taking up the post of Chief Executive at Business Link Lancashire, which he held for over eight years.

Clive knows the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) community inside-out and is a passionate champion of ENWORKS’ mission to help businesses improve their resource efficiency and become more profitable.

Drew Thomas, Deputy Chief Executive, Economic Solutions Ltd

Drew is currently Deputy Chief Executive of the Economic Solutions Group, having held a number of roles within the organisation since 1997. Prior to joining the Group he worked in roles in Higher Education, the Civil Service and at Training and Enterprise Councils.

Economic Solutions is a not-for-profit group of companies employing over 1,250 staff and with a turnover of £80 million. Co-controlled by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce it operates predominantly in the North West, delivering business growth and training services to 14,000 businesses, and employment and careers services to over 40,000 people. Drew’s responsibilities include overseeing the Group’s low-carbon and resource efficiency activities, its services to individual customers, and business finance services. Drew also played a key role in facilitating the transfer of ENWORKS into the Economic Solutions Group in 2011.

Mark Atherton, Director of Energy and Environment, Northwest Regional Development Agency

Mark joined the Northwest Regional Development Agency in 2002 and has held several roles within the organisation, including Head of Environment, Head of Sustainable Development and Head of Environment and Climate Change. Mark currently holds the post of Director of Energy and Environment, where he is responsible for providing innovative and strategic leadership to the Agency’s work on energy and environment.

Mark chairs the Northwest Climate Change Partnership and the Northwest Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) Partnership. He sits on the boards of ENWORKS, the Business Link Environment and Efficiency Board, the Northwest Waste Committee, the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP)’s Programme Management Board and the Northwest River Basin District Liaison Board.

Born and educated in Liverpool, Mark now lives in Preston. In addition to management qualifications, he holds a BSc Honours degree in ecology and organic chemistry and an MSc in applied hydrobiology from Cardiff University. Prior to joining the NWDA, Mark was Area Fisheries, Ecology and Recreation Manager for the Environment Agency’s Central Area in the Northwest.

Bob Clark, Board Member, Cumbria Rural Enterprise Agency

Bob Clark is the recently retired Executive Director of Cumbria Rural Enterprise Agency, part of the network of partner organisations delivering ENWORKS resource efficiency support to businesses in the Northwest.

Trained at Newton Rigg College and the Royal Agricultural College, with a distinction in Farm Management, Bob’s career began with five years of working in farm machinery, including the management of a small sales team. He used his experience of installing capital equipment on farms to establish his own building company, which employed 28 people at its peak. Following a short spell with the North West Water Authority, Bob became a business adviser for COSIRA in 1982, before it was re-organised into the Business Service of the Rural Development Commission. He was promoted to economic development officer for the North West within the new structure.

In 1994, Bob was seconded to CREA to reinvigorate the organisation and help it to become a key part of the national Business Link network. Ten years later, in 2004, he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, for Services to Rural Communities. Having recently retired, he continues to play an active role at CREA as a board member.

Michael Damms, Chief Executive, East Lancashire Chamber, representing Northwest Chambers of Commerce

Michael has been Chief Executive Officer of the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce since 1993, representing its 1,000 members and the interests of the wider business community. He is also a member of Pennine Lancashire’s Chief Executives’ Group, PLACE, and sits on the Northwest Regional International Trade and Sustainable Procurement Forums, the 4NW regional leaders’ board and the Integrated Regional Strategy Advisory Group for the Northwest Chambers of Commerce.

Michael started his career in engineering and went on to become Director of Operations for a number of large national transport companies. He has been Vice Chair of the Lancashire Economic Partnership, chair of the Lancashire Strategic Manufacturing Group and a board member of Groundwork Pennine Lancashire, ENWORKS and the Northwest Health and Wellbeing Group. He has chaired the Blackburn with Darwen Children and Young People’s Trust economic wellbeing board, and was a primary negotiator on the content of the Business and Ideas Priority section of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)’s Northwest Programme for 2000 to 2006.

Michael is a private sector representative for the Lancashire Climate Change Partnership and was awarded an MBE in 2008 for Services to Business in the Northwest.

Steve Moore, North West Director, Environment Agency

Steve Moore began his career with the Agency in 2000, having spent 20 years in the construction industry. Currently he is the acting NW Director responsible for leading the Environment Agency activities across the NW. Steve has worked through various roles including Head of Business Improvement, Head of Operations, Corporate Services Manager, Area Manager and more recently Strategic Planning and Performance. Helping improve the environment through the way the Environment Agency works, the influence it brings and the messages it communicates has been paramount in all these roles.

Steve has significant experience in regulation, strategic planning and policy development, and in organisational change management. He sees the Environment Agency as being at the forefront of addressing the environment challenges the UK and the rest of the world face in relation to climate change and sustainable development.

Andrew Darron, Executive Director, Groundwork Lancashire West & Wigan, representing Groundwork UK

Andrew joined the ENWORKS board in August 2011 to represent Groundwork UK as the former accountable body for the ENWORKS programme. He is currently executive director of Groundwork Lancashire West & Wigan, where he is responsible for leading the strategic development of the trust and its related operational activities, including a growing commercial environmental consultancy service. Andrew also sites on the newly formed North West Waterways Local Partnership Board, supporting the transition of British Waterways from the public sector into the third sector.

Prior to joining Groundwork Lancashire West & Wigan he worked at Groundwork in Manchester for 12 months and as head of regional development at Groundwork Northwest, where he led Groundwork’s involvement in the NWDA Newlands programme and the successful consortium bid for £20 million to deliver a five-year Target: Wellbeing programme of work-based health and wellbeing services.

Andrew is an engineer by background and has a BEng (Hons) in Environmental Engineering from Cardiff University.  He started his career with North West Water, as a technician in their Water Treatment Technology Development Team.  He joined Groundwork in 1997as an Environmental Business Advisor, providing resource efficiency and Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) compliance services for SMEs.  

Andrew was responsible for developing and managing the Oldham & Rochdale Business Environment Association, which at the time was one of the largest SME environmental support programmes in the region. He also managed the delivery of an ENWORKS contract for North Manchester during the early phases of the programme and was involved in developing ENWORKS’ first resource efficiency support programme.

Nick Storer, Chief Executive, Envirolink Northwest

Nick has considerable experience in the environmental technologies and the services sector. He joined Envirolink Northwest in 2003 after nine years working as an environmental consultant with Enviros (previously March Consulting). Whilst at Enviros, he specialised in advising businesses on process efficiency, waste minimisation, environmental management, waste management and developing markets for recycled wastes.

Nick graduated from Leeds University with a chemical engineering degree and started his career in research and development with Johnson Matthey. He worked on diverse technologies such as car exhaust catalysts, fuel cells and high temperature plasma catalyst recycling before moving on to join Procter & Gamble in Manchester, to manage an industrial chemicals manufacturing plant. He has also worked as a hazardous waste management engineer for a number of companies, including SRM (previously Solrec) in Morecambe, and as a contract process engineer on pharmaceutical and medical waste treatment plant designs.

Peter Davys, Managing Director, Orrest Ltd, representing Federation of Small Businesses

Peter is a highly experienced managing director with 30 years of technical and management experience in the chemical industry. He founded Orrest Ltd in 2004, providing business solutions to the manufacturing sector, including surface coatings, adhesives, construction and textiles businesses and related industries.

Peter has a BA (Hons) in marketing and business studies from Manchester Metropolitan University and a postgraduate certificate in management. He is a national councillor representing the Northwest of England for the Federation of Small Businesses and is the Chair and non-executive Director of EMERGE Food. He is also a trustee of EMERGE 3Rs and the Salford Foundation Trust.

Peter started his career as a trainee manager at H Marcel Guest Ltd paint manufacturers in Manchester. Prior to founding Orrest, he led the technical, sales and production team for four years at Clairant UK Ltd, as Business Unit Manager, and he oversaw a number of key accounts in the paint and graphics industry at BASF Plc in Cheadle for nine years.

George Hall, Research Fellow, University of Central Lancashire, representing North West Universities Association

George is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), with particular interests in sustainable processing. He represents the North West Universities Association on the ENWORKS Board.

George started his research career in the 1970s as a fisheries research officer at the University of Ghana, on the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) scheme. He went on to become a senior scientific officer in the Food Service Division of the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), before taking up a lectureship at Loughborough University in 1984. He has published and delivered 41 academic papers in scientific journals and at conferences and written four books, including his latest on sustainability in fish processing.

Prior to joining UCLan five years ago, George was secretary of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, a bio-engineering project advisor for the British Council and a member of the editorial board for the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. He has also worked as a consultant for a range of projects around the world, including raw material selection and processing in the UK and Thailand for Mars Corporation, sustainability in Jordan’s tomato canning industry for the Packing Industries Research Institute (PIRA), and fermentation technologies to minimise waste in the Newfoundland shrimping industry.

Philip Harris, Chief Executive, Optic Glyndwr Ltd, representing Institute of Directors

Philip Harris has been responsible for leading the turnaround of Wrexham-based optics company, Optic Glyndwr Ltd, since the summer of 2009. He holds the Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors and is a committee member of the Institute's Manchester branch.

After graduating with a PhD in Chemistry, Philip joined pharmaceuticals company, Ciba Geigy, in 1985, as a research scientist. In the 1990s, he progressed through quality assurance, purchasing, manufacturing, supply chain, warehousing, IT and finance, within the wider Ciba Group.

In 1999, Philip took up a lead role in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project, preparing for the ‘Y2K’ IT issues associated with the start of the new millennium, in the year 2000. He went on to join the board of directors as restructuring manager and played a key role in global turnaround activities for the company until 2004, when he led a management buy-out of its UK manufacturing facilities.

From 2004 he managed the UK operations under the name HARMAN technology Ltd and led a number of mergers and acquisitions. His company was awarded the Presidents Award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) and he spearheaded a successful internal energy efficiency programme that reduced annual energy consumption by 15 per cent.

Philip worked as a senior management consultant for a year before joining Optic Glyndwr Ltd as chief executive in 2009, and was welcomed to the ENWORKS Partnership Board, representing the Institute of Directors in the North West, in 2010.