Liverymen / Freemen/ Associates / Guests

Presented by Professor Simon Spooner, Atkins

About this Webinar

With a focus on developing our Associate Members – but a topic very relevant to all career levels – learn about the importance of building relationships between universities and industries.

About the Speaker

Professor Simon Spooner is an environmental scientist applying scientific methods combined with social, political and regulatory models to address the challenges that we face and help build better infrastructure systems.

Currently his main activities are: as a senior expert advisor on the UK health Security Agency programme to develop wastewater based epidemiology responses to the Covid-19 pandemic; applying his SimBasinQ river basin water quality model to address the impact of wastewater discharges on our rivers; and developing nature based catchment solutions to flooding, water quality, water resources, biodiversity and carbon sequestration. He has developed the combustion transition framework, an innovative approach to integrating GHG emissions reductions and land-use based regeneration of natural processes with a framework of metrics and economic tools to facilitate an accelerated transition to net-zero.

As a consultant with Atkins and before that Mott MacDonald he worked about half his time overseas, mostly in China over the last 30 years, on major World Bank, EU and UK government projects in urban environment development, energy systems and environmental policy. He was Technical Director for water and environment for Atkins in China delivering urban planning projects. More recently he worked in partnership with KPMG for the UK FCDO in China on the development of environmental governance processes and access to international financing for infrastructure projects under China’s Belt and Road programme. In the UK he mostly worked for water companies in wastewater and river basin management and in water industry regulatory processes.

Honorary Professor of Nottingham University in UK and China, regular guest lecturer Cambridge, Tsinghua and many Chinese Universities. Author of reference books on water and environmental regulation in English and Chinese. Advisory Board Member for UK and EU research projects.

What he really enjoys is building on the latest science and digital systems to innovate and find simpler integrated solutions to complex problems.