Peter Guthrie
Peter Guthrie - Professor of Engineering for Sustainable Development, University of Cambridge.
Peter took up this post in September 2000. The research he leads is focused on the integration of sustainable development into decision making in large infrastructure projects such as regeneration schemes, buildings and mining projects, worldwide. Research has concentrated on waste in construction and demolition, methods of measurement and assessment, and ways to systematise decisions towards sustainable development, particularly in large infrastructure projects. He was Principal Investigator into the sustainable development of major residential and mixed development schemes in the Thames Gateway. He has been involved over several years in researching and helping to develop the sustainable development performance of the Eden Project in Cornwall.
As a civil engineer with a geotechnical background he has experience in major infrastructure projects including the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Birmingham and Manchester Airports, the Eden Project, and West Coast Mainline Route Upgrade. Between 1992 and 2004 he established and led the environmental division of a major consultancy firm growing to over 200 staff covering the full spectrum of environmental and sustainable development skills. From his early career he can call on experience gained with geotechnical contractors on site, investigations for road, airport and marine projects. He spent one year in Nigeria, and later two years in Lesotho on the management of labour based road construction and maintenance. In the 1980s and 1990s he undertook several specialist missions for the International Labour Office and DFID (formerly Overseas Development Administration) to southern Sudan, Botswana, Ethiopia and the Philippines. In 1980, following a three month assignment working for Oxfam and UNHCR in Malaysia with the Vietnamese Boat People, he founded RedR - Engineers for Disaster Relief which is a charity providing qualified and experienced specialists to disasters worldwide. It is now a significant player in humanitarian assistance, having provided over 2000 specialists worldwide.
Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the Arup Foundation Advisory Board, and a Vice-President of RedR - Engineers for Disaster Relief. He is a member of the DEFRA Scientific Advisory Council.
Peter Guthrie is speaking in the session Powering the City: Innovations in Energy
