Master of Ceremonies
With a string of awards, including the country’s highest accolades for television and comedy, Te Radar is one of New Zealand’s most recognised entertainers and presenters. He has an extensive career in documentary making, writing, stage and screen directing, as well as being a celebrated comedian and satirist.
Te Radar appears by arrangement with Johnson & Laird Management.
Keynote Sponsor - SHAPE Energy
Justin Bean is an impact-focused tech executive who has worked with Fortune 500s, Silicon Valley startups, and non- profit organizations to achieve triple-bottom-line (people, planet, profit) results, as an intrapreneur and entrepreneur, consultant, mentor, and thought leader. He is the author of What Could Go Right: Designing our ideal future to emerge from continual crises to a thriving world.
He has authored many syndicated articles and has been interviewed by the New York Times, Forbes, The Hill, Fast Company, Big Think, NBC, South China Morning Post, and others on topics ranging from smart cities, sustainable technology, AI and IoT, and industry solutions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and social issues.
Professor Liz Varga has a chair in Complex Systems in the Civil, Environmental, and Geomatics Engineering Department, University College London (UCL). She leads the Infrastructure Systems Institute and is a commissioner with the National Preparedness Commission. She is the technical lead for the United Nations office for Disaster Risk Reduction work on principles for resilient infrastructure including the handbook published this year. She is a director of UKCRIC Limited and coordinated the UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) (https://www.ukcric.com/). She is project manager for a new international standard ISO 22372 on infrastructure resilience.
Melanie Gall, PhD, CFM is an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs where she co-directs the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security and manages the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS). She is a trained hazards geographer studying the interaction between natural hazards and society. Her expertise lies in risk metrics (e.g., disaster losses, indices, risk assessments), hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation planning as well as environmental modeling.
Christopher T. Emrich, PhD, GISP is an endowed professor of Environmental Science and Public Administration within the School of Public Administration and a founding member of the National Center for Integrated Coastal Research at University of Central Florida (UCF Coastal). His research/practical service includes applying geospatial technologies to emergency management planning and practice, long-term disaster recovery, and the intersection of social vulnerability and community resilience in the face of catastrophe.
He led the University of Canterbury as Vice Chancellor for ten years, and holds a PhD in Insurance and Risk Management, an MA in Applied Economics and Managerial Science, an MBA in Money and Finance and honours degrees in law and economics.
Hon Megan Woods is a Christchurch local, and has been the Member of Parliament for Wigram since 2011. Under Jacinda Ardern’s leadership, Megan held the ministerial portfolios for Housing, Energy and Resources, Building and Construction, Greater Christchurch Regeneration, and Research, Science and Innovation, as well as being Associate Minister of Finance.
Prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, Megan worked as a Business Manager at Plant & Food Research. She holds a PhD in New Zealand history from the University of Canterbury. In between a busy schedule, Megan enjoys watching cricket, rugby and spending her free time with friends and family.
Julie Anne Genter has been a Member of Parliament for the Green Party since 2011.
She is currently the spokesperson for Transport, Energy and Resources, Finance, Urban Development, Building and Construction, Infrastructure and State Owned Enterprises. She is also Deputy Chairperson of Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee.
Julie Anne previously served as Minister for Women and Associate Minister of Transport and Health, from 2017-2020.
Simon Court is a first term ACT MP and spokesperson for Environment, Climate, Transport and Local Government, Simon is a Civil and Environmental Engineer with 20 plus years' experience in roles for the private sector and local government. This includes 10 years leading engineering, planning, tendering, and leading construction teams primarily in Auckland, Wellington, and Fiji.
Simon has three teenagers, the youngest with Down Syndrome which influences his perspective on accessibility.
In local government Simon managed a portfolio of 200 closed landfills, many in the coastal area, with aging and failing infrastructure. This experience led to a change of direction, and eventually to Parliament with ACT, where Simon sits on Environment Committee and Transport Committee.
Simon believes that reforms to the RMA and Three Waters are a unique opportunity to set much higher ambitions for productivity and strengthen property rights, but the current Governments direction will not deliver either. Transport policy should focus on improving network efficiency, relieving congestion and building capacity before the roads are gridlocked, not fixing climate change. That is because the cap on emissions under the ETS and a carbon price already sets the right incentive.
Simon Watts is the Member of Parliament for North Shore. He is the National Party spokesperson for Climate Change, Local Government, Regional Development, Statistics and associate spokesperson for Finance and Infrastructure.
He studied Accounting and Finance at Waikato University and worked in investment banking for some of the world largest investment banks, including at the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Simon has also completed a Health Sciences degree at and continues to volunteer with St John as a frontline ambulance officer.
Glen Bennett was elected Member of Parliament for New Plymouth in 2020 and brought with him his experience in business enterprise, restorative justice, community development and youth support.
In Parliament Glen has been deputy chair of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation, and Social Services and Community committees, and a member of the Finance and Expenditure committee.
In Government, Glen has championed clean energy and is proud of the role his electorate is playing in achieving this goal.
Originally from Pātea in South Taranaki, Tory is of Pakakohe and Ngā Ruahine descent.She lived in the small town before moving to Wellington to study Media Studies at Victoria University at age 20.
Tory has worked as a film censor, a marketing executive for AXA New Zealand and a marketing manager at an Australian superannuation provider and a digital marketing manager for Signa Insurance. More recently she spent 6 years as the chief of staff for the Green Party.
Tory lives in Wellington with her dog Teddy. She is learning to love the Phoenix football team.
Andrew Knight commenced as Chief Executive of Gas Industry Co in March 2018.
Prior to that Andrew was the Managing Director and Chief Executive of New Zealand Oil & Gas (NZOG) and was on the Gas Industry Co Board from 2012 to 2016.
He has also previously held executive management roles with Vector Limited, the NGC Holdings Limited Group of Companies, The Australian Gas Light Company and Fletcher Challenge Energy. Andrew's early career was spent as an auditor with Coopers & Lybrand.
Gian Raffainer has an international track record in product development and sustainability. He brings over 38 years’ experience in the cement industry to the team at Golden Bay.
As the leaders in low carbon cement, Gian is leading the Golden Bay team on their journey to carbon-zero cement by 2050.
Hear the story of how Mike Casey built the world's first zero fossil fuel, 100% electric farm. Mike is a former software engineer and tech startup founder that threw in the towel on big city life, to have a go at decarbonising the primary industry through his passion for technology. Mike moved back to New Zealand from Sydney, having sold his tech startup in 2019 and invested in a farm in Central Otago.
The goal was to become a living breathing demonstration on how to decarbonise and electrify food production to increase efficiency and profits. Mike is here to share the story and all his numbers, because the only way we will truly enable change is to provide irrefutable evidence by example and complete fiscal transparency.
An experienced operations leader in the resource and energy sectors who thrives on creating an environment where people want to give of their best and achieve something significant. Currently the General Manager of Power Schemes, leading the operations and maintenance of Genesis’ generation assets. Heavily involved in the quest for securing renewable thermal fuels for Huntly Power Station.
Jake Roos has a Master of Applied Science in Energy Management and has worked on climate change mitigation for over 20 years. He has primarily worked for local government both in the UK and in NZ, including for Kāpiti Coast District Council , pioneering new approaches to carbon reduction. He also assisted with the development of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme.
Jake has operated as a freelance consultant since 2017, see: www.jakeroosconsulting.co.nz
Bobby Shen champions sustainability for existing buildings at the NZ Green Building Council, looking after the NABERSNZ and Green Star Performance rating tools. He uses his background in commercial architecture and sustainability to support building owners, property and facility managers to reduce their portfolio’s carbon footprint and improve their assets. He is involved in expanding the suite of NABERSNZ tools available in NZ and creating benchmarks for easier rating.
Anjana Krishnan leads the carbon management service offering at Metis Consultants in New Zealand. She has worked with local authorities primarily in the roading sector to quantify and manage their carbon, including strategic planning for targeted reductions. Her professional experience includes growing the carbon consulting portfolio at Metis, and low-carbon design and construction in Uganda.
Michael Burgess completed a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Auckland and has been working for Fletcher Building for the last 14 years. His first role at Fletchers was an R&D and environmental management role at Tasman Insulation (better known for manufacturing Pink® Batts® Insulation). In this role Michael became interested in the impact of business on the environment and moved into the corporate role of Group Environmental Manager at Fletcher Building. During this time the focus on carbon management at Fletcher Building continued to grow and in 2019 Michael shifted into his current role of Group Carbon & Environmental Performance Manager. His team is responsible for the management and reporting of all Fletcher Building’s fundamental environmental data for carbon, waste and water. Michael set the company’s science based target and is responsible for developing the decarbonisation strategy to meet Fletcher Building’s commitments.
Dr Carly Green has been involved in global Climate Change mitigation for over 20 years. She holds a PhD in International Climate Change Policy and founded Environmental Accounting Services in 2007; a consulting company focused on supporting individuals, businesses and countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through informed decision making and sustainable practices. Her passion is working with governments to develop capacities in national land use monitoring systems for international reporting and informing national policy decision making. She is also a board member of WAO Aotearoa where her focus is on local behavior change to drive emissions down.
James Carberry leads the Sustainable Solutions team at Simply Energy, responsible for supporting commercial and industrial customers to transition to a net-zero future. James has a mechanical engineering background and is passionate about innovative technologies and solutions that can help organisations to achieve their emission reduction goals.
James’ is currently focused on three key areas enabling New Zealand’s energy transition: flexibility, energy efficiency and reducing fossil fuel usage through electrification. Prior to joining Simply, James worked in the UK as an Energy Consultant for the global sustainability firm Anthesis, working with organisations to develop energy reduction strategies and implementing efficiency projects.
Glen Smith’s work as a mechanical engineer covers over 30 years of commercial HVAC and industrial refrigeration experience. As Commercial Manager of Airtech NZ Limited, he has overseen a number of large decarbonisation projects.
His presentation will cover off challenges, outcomes and lessons learnt from several Airtech NZ Limited’s decarbonisation projects.
Harshal Patel is a chartered professional engineer with 10 years’ experience in renewable energy and high voltage power transmission across New Zealand and Australia. He is also passionate about sustainability and is one of Beca’s leaders in Future Energy. His renewable energy experience include behind the meter solutions for industrial applications, microgrids through to utility scale in front of meter grid connections across solar PV, wind and battery energy storage systems.
He is a specialist in site selection, feasibility studies, yield analysis, procurement, & delivery strategies and technical advisory.
She is member of College of Assessors as a CE expert for the MBIE, Honorary lecturer at University of Waikato, represents NZ on the World Green Building Council Circularity Accelerator and has been invited to attend the World Circular Economic Forum 2023 in Helsinki.
Tracey Hale has been the Sustainability Adviser at Whangarei District Council since December 2021. This newly created role focuses on corporate sustainability, mitigation, carbon reduction, behaviour change and improving operational processes. As a Chartered Accountant, previous international athlete, yoga teacher and with a Masters in Sustainable Development Goals, Tracey’s holistic approach to her mahi offers a valuable and unique perspective.
Dr Tom Meaclem has experience in developing Agri-Tech solutions both in academia and industry. His PhD (University of Canterbury) focused on the development of high efficiency fertilisers. After this, Tom worked as a R&D Engineer at Hot Lime Labs, an Agri-tech start-up prior to joining DETA Consulting.
Tom’s current work focus around anaerobic digestion, biomass, and industrial decarbonisation. His other interests include decarbonisation policy, biomass gasification and pyrolysis.
Steve Dixon joined ANZ as an ESG Specialist in 2021 and, in this role, he supports businesses to help them prepare for a more sustainable future as New Zealand’s transition to a net-zero carbon economy takes shape.
Steve has over 25 years’ experience in the area of environmental sustainability and holds a Masters in Environmental Assessment and Evaluation from London School of Economics. He has worked with governments and businesses to reduce their carbon and environmental impacts, most recently as General Manager for Strategy & Partnerships at Toitū Envirocare. He has held governance roles with organisations such as Environmental Choice and the Sustainable Business Network and has run large environmental projects in the Middle East for Maven Consulting. He was also Chair of Enviro-Mark Solutions’ Independent Technical Advisory Panel.
Pat Hoult’s role as Senior Manager Business at ANZ Wellington covers over 30 years of lending experience.
As a national commercial lead of sustainability he has helped develop and market the bank’s debt solutions for energy efficiency and decarbonisation projects
Celia Wells is the Socio-Economic Policy Specialist and Environmental Social Science Team Leader, GNS Science. She leads work on corporate social and environmental responsibility integration with GNS’ science, with a professional background in the private sector, she identifies opportunities for industry that exist within science and works to facilitate and accelerate change by mapping potential adaptive pathways.
Dr. Alelign Gessese, a principal engineer at Lumen based in Christchurch, with over a decade of experience in the energy and carbon sector. His expertise spans a wide range of projects, including feasibility studies, energy transition accelerators, decarbonisation roadmaps, business cases, energy audits, and project delivery. Driven by a passion for decarbonisation, he plays a crucial role in shaping projects from concept development to successful implementation, leveraging his skills and knowledge to drive sustainable energy solutions.
Brian Cox has over 30 years’ experience in identifying, investigating and developing commercial capital investment projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors. For the last decade Brian has been the Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association.
His experience is split equally across public policy, commercial development of energy projects, and leading energy based industry associations. He specialises in the development of the gaseous, liquid and solid biofuels markets with a focus on feedstock supply from biomass and organic waste, and assisting association members secure the economic benefits of the emerging bioeconomy.
Belinda Mathers has extensive experience in developing and maintaining technical knowledge, competency and systems. As an engineer, she has a focus on efficiency and works closely with the Toitū Envirocare team to best use our range of expertise.
Belinda leads Toitū Envirocare’s Science and Advisory team and oversees technical delivery to ensure we keep on top of scientific research, changes in best practice, and business needs. With a background in chemical engineering and over 20 years in the climate change, environmental engineering and auditing fields, she is an expert in the assessment, verification and reduction of environmental impacts
Paul Bennett started with BP in the UK as scientist in 1988 and held a series of roles in R&D, Product Management, Policy Development, Strategy and Business Development. In 2005, he was part of a small team that established BP Biofuels business unit and has been working on bioenergy and biofuels ever since.
In 2014, he took the role of Science Leader of the Clean Technology Group . Amongst the key activities of this Group has been bioenergy, for the example the development of New Zealand’s Biofuels Roadmap, and a principle author of the Royal Society’s “Climate Change Mitigation Options for New Zealand” report. During this time, Paul has been an active member of the International Energy Agency Bioenergy Group and was Chair for 2021 and 2022.
Nicki Sutherland is General Manager of Investment and Engagement at EECA. She leads EECA’s delivery group whose aim is to make it easier for New Zealand businesses to choose clean and clever energy.
Nicki has worked across the energy industry for over 25 years in executive roles and before that as a commercial and environmental lawyer.
Dr Cristiano Marantes is the Chief Executive of Ara Ake, a role he started in September 2020. Cristiano is a highly experienced energy sector executive with an extensive engineering background and an informed worldview on the potential of technologies and business opportunities that will likely emerge in a low emissions energy future.
He has a life-long passion for enabling this future, through strong leadership, innovation and knowledge of new low emissions energy solutions.
Cara Askew joined Beca as a Building Science graduate in 2018, after completing her Master of Building Science degree, focusing on how continuous commissioning could be better enabled through the use of Building Management Systems. Cara now leads the delivery of BTune projects, Beca’s inhouse HVAC Automated Systems Optimisation (ASO) service. Cara believes existing buildings present the greatest opportunity to reduce energy and decarbonise the global building stock.
Geoff Simmons is Chief Economist at the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Geoff has over 20 years experience dealing with wicked economic, social and environmental public policy issues in New Zealand and the UK. He has worked at Treasury, the Productivity Commission and co-authored four books while General Manager of the Morgan Foundation.
Jonathan Pooch is Founder and Managing Director of DETA Consulting. DETA supports industrial and commercial clients throughout Australasia to develop and deliver sustainability strategy to ensure improvement goals are realised.
Jonathan is an experienced energy professional with over 15 years in the industry. Some key project highlights include supporting the Climate Leaders Coalition’s response to government as part of the Climate Change Commission consultation, development of a South Island wide decarbonisation roadmap and the installation of New Zealand’s first Hight Temperature Heat Pump. Jonathan is heavily focussed on action, and the tools need to make sure goals and targets are not just talked about, but are realised.
Marcus Baker is Lead Designer and Managing Director at Apricus Eco.
He has been delivering advice and practical solutions for energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable practices in the UK and New Zealand since 2004. Currently he is focussed on the implementation of pellet boilers, CO2 hot water heat pumps and solar thermal systems at all scales to decarbonise NZ buildings and homes.
At Apricus Eco, Marcus leads the team to design and install energy efficient, decarbonised central heating, domestic hot water and process heat systems for schools, hospitals, local government, universities, horticulture, companies and households. The team specialises in using smaller, flexible, energy efficient modules to provide very high output modulation and redundancy, delivered as plant room installs or containerised “Energy Box” systems.
Marcus is completely committed to designing and implementing practical solutions to deliver heating without worsening the climate crisis. He is particularly interested in the opportunities presented by a circular approach to meeting our energy and heating needs.
Scott has over 25 years of New Zealand and International building services engineering experience, is a Certified Measurement and Verification Professional, is a member of EVOs IPMVP Technical Committee and is experienced in all aspects of the Measurement and Verification of commercial building energy performance related projects.
Craig Duff is a Founding Director of Active Refrigeration, an industrial and heavy commercial refrigeration and air-conditioning business operating Nation-wide. Craig is an advanced trade qualified refrigeration engineer with NZCE (HVAC) and BE(Mech).
Craig has enjoyed a long tenure in the Refrigeration and high temperature heat pump field and continues to specialise in decarbonisation through the design and execution of high temperature heat pump technology to commercial and industrial users.
Jack Young is an Engineering Manager at Energy NZ.
Jack provides expert analysis of industrial energy systems, processes, market trends and technology integration options to businesses and organisations around New Zealand.
Jaimee | +64 27 320 7981
Paula | +64 27 649 2081