Time

5:00pm - 6:30pm

Venue

VIRTUAL | WEBINAR | UK

Cost

Free to attend

Hosted by the CIWEM North Western & North Wales branch

Event description

This webinar will look to explore our experiences of peat restoration from two perspectives – that of a water utility company and of an environmental consultancy.

The first of our two presentations will focus on United Utilities carbon net zero plan, looking at the work done in relation to reaching net zero through peatland restoration.

In 2020 United Utilities, along with the rest of the UK water industry, announced science based targets and a commitment to be carbon net zero by 2030 to help tackle climate change. As part of the route to net zero, the Company made six carbon pledges including planting one million trees and restoring 1000 hectares of peatland. As well as helping to reach net zero, these activities will help to maintain and improve the resilience of the natural environment to climate change.

Two years into the ten year plan, this presentation will reflect on the experience of carbon off-setting, particularly related to peatland restoration. This is an additional focus to improving the biodiversity of the Company’s upland land holding

The presentation will share experiences of applying the Peatland Code, share carbon flux data collected as part of a research project, and open a discussion on the gaps associated with using nature based solutions to off-set carbon emissions.

The second of the discussions is a snapshot of RSK’s wide-ranging capabilities in peatland restoration.

RSK is a group of over 175 environmental, engineering, and technical services businesses with 11,000 global employees. Our technical experts have over 20 years' experience of many aspects of peatland restoration including project co-design, management and delivery across the UK and Ireland.

Several RSK technical experts will share their experiences of peatland restoration through a series of case studies. This will include an overview of our involvement in the Pumlumon Project, a 40,000ha landscape scale payment for ecosystem services project, which tested the Peatland Code mechanism in Wales. We will then delve into the importance of pragmatism and adaptability when undertaking peatland restoration. And finish with an insight into our decision support tool, that helps to identify optimal locations for land use change for multiple environmental benefits, including water quality, carbon capture and biodiversity.


Part of the CIWEM Land & Water Management digital series.



Register for 6 December 2022

About the speakers

Clare Bullen | Integrated Catchment Strategy Manager | United Utilities

Clare Bullen is an integrated catchment strategy manager at United Utilities where she has worked since 2005. Following an MSc in catchment dynamics and management, Clare joined the Company at the start of the ground breaking Sustainable catchment management Programme. Over time Clare has been an advocate for the SCaMP principles of fixing problems at source to create multiple benefits and this has developed into UU’s new Catchment Systems Thinking approach. Clare’s role sets the long term strategy for managing water catchments with the aim of restoring natural processes and building resilience.

Kat Evans | Associate Director Business Development | RSK ADAS Ltd

Kat Evans is associate director for business development and emerging markets for ADAS and RSK Habitat Management. She set up ADAS Natural Solutions, to solve many challenges we face today, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, by working with nature. After working in advertising, she was inspired by nature-based solutions and how it provided a holistic approach for more sustainable business. She completed MSc in Biodiversity Conservation, and has worked in the environmental sector for the last 10 years, primarily in business development. She works closely with other RSK companies and set up the RSK Peatland Working Group to share expertise across projects.

Dr Liz Lewis-Reddy | Director of Policy and Economics | RSK ADAS Ltd

Liz Lewis-Reddy is the director of the policy and economics team with ADAS who are responsible for the socio-ecological and socio-economic analysis of land use change. This has given her UK wide experience of how new markets can be established to trade the goods and services generated from sustainable land management. Prior to joining ADAS, Liz was responsible for peatland restoration delivery and associated investment mechanisms on large scale projects in Wales and was the Chair of the Welsh Government funded collaborative learning group on PES (Payments for Ecosystem Services Schemes).

Jason Winslow | Technical Director | RSK Habitat Management

Jason Winslow oversees the delivery of habitat creation and restoration projects for RSK Habitat Management and ADAS Natural Solutions. He has over 14 years’ hands-on experience in the practical delivery and project management of large, complex habitat creation and restoration projects across many different habitats, particularly in rivers, wetlands and peatlands. As his experience spans many sectors, from infrastructure and development to government and conservation, often on a landscape level and with varying accessibility, he is highly knowledgeable of different techniques and the latest innovations to successfully deliver solutions that work with natural processes.

Boyd Henderson | Operations Director | RSK Habitat Management

Boyd Henderson has over 30 years of experience working on extremely sensitive and environmentally significant sites throughout the UK. This has included work on peatlands, wet woodlands and marsh areas. Boyd has delivered numerous peatland restoration works from design through to practical implementation. His wider experience includes mountain habitat restoration works, wildlife mitigation, forestry and woodland projects, often delivered on a large scale and in collaboration with numerous stakeholders. Collaboration and innovation form a large part of how Boyd delivers and inputs into projects, fostering the ongoing success of projects and continually developing new and existing techniques.

Dr Dave Skirvin | Associate Director Modelling and Informatics | RSK ADAS Ltd

Dave Skirvin has over 20 years’ experience in ecological modelling within an agricultural context. He has developed tools to aid the development of policy on the use of land in relation to habitat and species ecological connectivity for Natural England. He is currently leading the development of a methodology for assessing the impact of land use change on biodiversity and carbon emissions as part of the development of the Land Use Choices Tool (LUCT) for the Environment Agency and Defra. Dave is also the lead developer of the software used for the calculation of emissions as part of the UK Greenhouse Gas and Ammonia Emissions Inventory for Agriculture. Dave also leads a work package developing a web-based platform for the sharing of decision support systems as part of the Horizon 2020 funded project IPM Decisions.



Booking and joining information

This event is open to members and non-members of CIWEM.

This webinar will be hosted on the Zoom platform and will be recorded. Please note that registrations will close 24 hours before the event starts. If you have not registered before that time, unfortunately we cannot add you to the event. You will receive an email with joining instructions after you have successfully registered for the webinar and the registration has been approved by our team. If you have any questions about your booking or would like to cancel your attendance, please contact barbara.woods@ciwem.org.

Please make sure you add this event to your calendar, all you need to do is copy the body text of the joining instruction email, go to your Calendar, create a new calendar appointment, set the start and end date and time, paste the text and click the "Save & Close" button.

If you have any queries about this talk, please contact Rob van at Rob.Van@environment-agency.gov.uk.


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