Transport the business opportunity of the net zero transition in the East of England
Next in our series in collaboration with the Centre for Climate Engagement, Hughes Hall at the University of Cambridge focusing around Green Technology and businesses within the East of England.
In May 2019, Cambridgeshire declared a climate and environment emergency.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough region has 25% higher greenhouse gas emissions than the UK average and is an area particularly at risk to the impacts of climate change, including more frequent and severe flooding events, water shortages and more extreme summer temperatures. If the region continues producing emissions at its present rate, there are only six years left until it has used up its emissions allowance to 2050, as set out in the UK’s Net Zero target. Local action is urgently needed.
The Centre for Climate Engagement and IoD East of England are collaborating on an event series throughout 2022, with regular events for non-executive directors, board members and business leaders in the East of England to accelerate business climate action in the region. This next event will focus around Transport and the opportunity of net zero within businesses in the East of England.
The event will be moderated by Harriet Harthan, Senior Knowledge Broker at the Centre for Climate Engagement.
Speakers
Dan Thorpe
Dan is Directory of Policy and Programmes at Cambridge Ahead, supporting the organisation to building upon the success of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Economic Review to promote the sustainable and inclusive growth of the Cambridge region. Research work at Cambridge ahead has spanned spatial planning, transport, and housing policy with particular research into new approaches that place quality of life at the heart of economic growth.
Previously Dan worked at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority as part of establishing the new Authority and focusing on place-making. This included developing the first Local Industrial Strategy for the region.
Prior to the Combined Authority Dan worked in a variety of economic development and policy roles at Cambridgeshire County Council and Improvement East.
Harriet Harthan
Harriet has over 15 years’ experience working in climate, energy and sustainable development in a policy and business context at local, national and international level. Harriet leads the knowledge brokering team at the CCE, collaborating with academic and industry experts to understand key areas of climate research and how this can be translated for independent directors, business leaders and policymakers to accelerate climate action.
Sam Clarke
Sam Clarke is a life-long entrepreneur, EV evangelist, industry advisor and EV driver for nearly 20 years. He was a 2015 winner at the Great British Entrepreneurs Awards and in 2022 was voted #25 in the greenfleet.net top 100 most influential people in Low Carbon Fleets and #5 in the Motor Transport Power Players for 2022. In 2009 he founded the all-electric last-mile logistics business Gnewt which subsequently won multiple awards nationally and globally and was acquired by John Menzies Plc in 2017. During his tenure, he created the UK’s largest fully electric commercial fleet, the largest privately-owned smart charging infrastructure and UK’s most advanced private V2G (Vehicle to Grid) network. The business was able to deliver over 10 million parcels in its first 10 years of trading, mainly in Central London, courtesy of a fully zero-emission fleet. Most recently, Sam has extended his role from Board advisor at GRIDSERVE to become their Chief Vehicle Officer. His role is to drive forward mass uptake of electric vehicles through the creation of a net zero EV leasing division, commercial charging infrastructure builds and support the nationwide network roll out of high-powered Electric Forecourts as well as the upgrade of the Electric Highway service station network. Sam is also a regular public speaker for the industry and has previously been invited to speak at the Transport Select Committee in Westminster and at the European Commission in Brussels. He is also a founding member and permanent sofa panelist for The EV Café Ltd. which is a widely recognised webinar series discussing all aspects of EV adoption.
Sam Keam
Sam founded Brighton-based cargo bike logistics operator, Recharge Cargo, in 2013. He has a background in Environmental Geography and science policy and research. In 2018, Sam joined forces with Rob King to launch Zedify, with a shared mission to make deliveries in cities more sustainable at an impactful scale. Sam leads on sustainability strategy, impact and reporting at Zedify.
Sam Warren
Sam began his career working on the development and implementation of sustainability and low carbon projects at Chelmsford City Council. During his time there he managed a variety of projects ranging from energy reduction, operational efficiency, through to private sector engagement to encourage and support transitions to lower carbon business activities. More recently Sam has taken on the role of Sustainability Manager for Woodland Group. This position involves two main areas of focus, internal decarbonisation of fleet and business operations, and leading external discussions with clients on methods to decarbonise the transportation and distribution of their goods. Using in-depth reporting tools, Sam and the rest of the team at Woodland are able to measure and analyse current supply chain emissions, implement methods to decarbonise, and finally go through the process of ensuring carbon neutral shipments are available to clients where meeting net-zero targets are their ambition for today, not just the long term future.
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