The Sustainability Series

START THE SUSTAINABILITY SERIES

The Sustainability Series

Our Sustainability Series aims to highlight the many challenges and opportunities presented to us in tackling the climate crisis, by exploring the impact humans have had on the environment over time, whilst encouraging our duty to be agents of positive change. Led by experts in their sector, these talks will make the case for environmental action and hope for the future.

The GWC Sustainability Framework will be officially launched during the first of these talks, sharing our plan to reduce our environmental impact as a community and improve the positive contribution that the school makes to the sustainability of our planet.

Meet Emilie Robinson, Director Project 810

Meet The Presenters

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    Paul van Heyningen OBE
    Deputy Director, Net Zero Electricity Networks at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
    After doing a PhD in molecular biology, Paul decided academia was not for him and started his civil service career in 2001 in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, just a few weeks before the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak struck. Since then, has has held a variety of posts in Government, focused on energy, climate change and environmental policy. Between 2016 and 2020, he was a Deputy Director in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, leading teams on the UK’s exit
    from the European Union: first on carbon emissions trading and latterly on Northern Ireland, which shares an all-island electricity market with the Republic. In his current role, Paul and his team work to make sure our electricity grid is ready for the transition to electric vehicles and other low carbon technologies as we move towards a net zero emissions economy.
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    Eva Cairns
    Head of Climate Change Strategy, Aberdeen Standard Investments
    Eva Cairns is the Head of Climate Change Strategy at Aberdeen Standard Investments and
    responsible for leading ASI’s climate change agenda to ensure a consistent and rigorous climate change approach is applied to investments, solutions and communications. Eva has published a number of climate related papers including ‘Investing in a changing climate’, ‘Climate change – Our approach Investments’ and more recently, she co-authored ASI’s climate scenario analysis white paper. Eva is also a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh MSc in carbon finance.

    Before focusing her efforts on the climate agenda, Eva managed a team of Business Analysts, focused on projects related to the investment process, risk and research. Eva joined Standard Life Investmentsin 2010 from Halcrow Group Ltd (now CH2M Hill), a global engineering consultancy, where she worked as an Economist focused on environmental and socio-economic impact assessment of energy and transport projects.

    Eva graduated with an MSc in Economics with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh where her dissertation focused on the social cost of carbon. She also obtained the Professional Risk Management (PRM) certification in 2014.
Webinars in this series
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    Tuesday 5th October, 6pm
    The UK's path to Net Zero
    The Government committed in 2019 to reduce the UK’s greenhouse emissions to Net Zero by 2050. And, under the Climate Change Act (2008... View more
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    Tuesday 23rd November, 6pm
    Climate Change: The state of our planet and how are choices can make a difference
    Our climate is changing, temperatures are rising and we are seeing more extreme weather events across the globe. Many countries and o... View more
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    On Demand
    S6 Assembly with Eva Cairns, Head of Climate Change Strategy, Aberdeen Standard Investments
    We were delighted to welcome Eva Cains, Head of Climate Change Strategy at Aberdeen Standard Investments, to speak to S6 on the relat... View more
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    The future belongs to the young; Appreciating and sharing Scotland's natural environment
    We are delighted to welcome Peter Wright, Patron of The Green Team and Chief Executive Penny Radway. The Green Team helps young peopl... View more
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    What are your sustainable development goals? How to contribute to the decade of action
    The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were set out in 2015 for the WHOLE world to meet by 2030. However with COVID-19, climate ... View more
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