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 30 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 and headquarters in Bristol. Through a merger in 2009 with GL and Noble Denton, GL Garrad Hassan became the world’s largest independent renewable energy consultancy, adding expertise in wave, tidal and solar energy. 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, and a board member of the Tyndall Centre.

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

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.

Anne is Chief Internal Auditor with Nationwide, a high profile role at Divisional Director level which demands regular and authoritative engagement, both formal and informal, with executive and non-executive directors and with senior management throughout the firm.

Anne is responsible for strategic direction and leadership of a department of over 60 staff, and for the planning and delivery of the internal audit programme across the entire business, including specialist functions such as Treasury and IT as well as product, operations and distribution areas.

Formerly a Director in PricewaterhouseCoopers with a leadership position in client-facing and internal roles, Anne is a qualified chartered accountant with extensive experience of working with clients in the retail banking and mortgage lending industry.

She has a strong commitment to Nationwide’s values and mutual status and is interested in issues of social and financial exclusion, and Anne became a CSE Trustee in 2012.

Colin has been active in the renewable energy field since 1978. An engineer by training, he was involved in the original UK wave energy programme in the 1970s 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 1997 he co-founded Wind Prospect, one of the first wind energy development companies in the UK, where he led its development activities. He was Development Director of the company until 2004 which has grown to establish operations in UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, France and China. He is now a non-executive director of the Wind Prospect group where he focuses on leading it into new technologies, the latest of which is solar energy. Wind Prospect was presented with a Beacon award in 2008. Colin has been a CSE trustee since 2000.

Chris holds masters degrees in Computational Physics and Earth System Science, has studied energy systems and environmental decision making with the Open University and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in glaciology focusing on the Greenland ice sheet. He has a decade's engineering experience in the field of cellular telecoms, specialising in radio network architecture and off-grid power systems in emerging markets. He is also European editor of The Oil Drum, a popular weblog studying energy security and policy and regularly speaks on energy security. To get away from the computer he competes triathlon events.