Green Conversations – November 2025

Join us upstairs at the Brookmill
If you missed our last Green Conversations event – you should try to get to this one on 10th November at the Brookmill, when three eminent speakers will present their expertise using graspable language. Young people are especially welcome. We all know about climate change and we hear of some amazing inventions that look promising. But will they really work? And how might local communities deal with this knowledge? As these questions raise complex issues, we are fortunate to have this unique meeting of minds to help us find our own answers. This event is likely to attract many attendees, so please book your (free/donation) places now, to avoid disappointment. – link for free/donation tickets here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-GB/ticketing/is-eco-science-working

Prof. Chris Ryan – WHAT HAPPENED TO ECODESIGN?
Since the 1970s Chris watched as the global enthusiasm for sustainable design waxed and waned. He asks how can we regain our passion and our pioneering spirit? Professor Ryan has worked for over 30 years across various areas of science, technology, environmental policy and design, and in projects that span the community sector, academia, government and international agencies and business. His community sector work includes the creation of a number of networks of ‘alternative’ and ‘radical’ technology in the UK in the 1970’s. As an academic he help found the first multi-disciplinary undergraduate socio-environmental degree program at RMIT University that spanned two faculties (Social Science and Architecture and Design). As Director of the National (Key) Centre for Environmental Design from (1989-98) he worked with 20 Australian companies to develop a new eco-design methodology and bring new greener products into the market. He has also collaborated with many eco-design related research groups in Europe, including the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands and the UK Design Council. His business work has involved projects or long term consulting for Schiavello (Australia); Transurban (Australia); Electrolux (Europe and Asia Pacific); Volvo Penta, (Sweden); Brio (Sweden); Body Shop (Australasia); Blackmores (Australia); Isle Property Development Group (Australia). Professor Ryan was consultant to the UN Environment Program coordinating and writing the Global Progress Report on Sustainable Consumption for the Johannesburg UN world summit in 2002. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Industrial Ecology (Yale University) and a member of the Board of the Banksia Foundation Australia. He is joint editor of Design for Sustainability – a step by step guide; UN Environment Program Paris, 2009.

Daniel Ptacek – WILL CARBON CAPTURE SAVE US?
Many of Daniel’s inventions involve de-carbonisation, but will his enterprises reduce net carbon, or will the promise of carbon capture be used to justify ‘drill baby drill’? Since 2000 Daniel has been leading decarbonisation technologies , mostly in the built environment and mineralization, at a time when global warming was barely acknowledged. From negative CO2 cement to direct flue gas carbon capture, it became clear that moving away from fossil fuels in these hard-to-abate industries is an arduous journey. The most successful outcomes in carbon capture, carbon abatement and weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels are ones that mimic nature. When the opportunity arose to start Aqua Botanika he did not hesitate; here at last was a product that is natural and therefore the ecological and regenerative benefits of its usage are immediate and plentiful. He is delighted that what he was taught as a young man in Maine, USA about how to gather and use seaweed, that this knowledge is finally proving of value. Daniel is a specialist in strategy, guiding and assuring innovation, IP, new product development and corporate governance including P&L responsibility. He has been a business leader and innovator across many sectors, delivering contracts on large capital projects including the Millennium Dome, London; the Dynamic Earth Project, Edinburgh; Glaxo’s Laboratories at Stevenage; and the world’s largest healthcare transformation in KSA. Daniel has a record of delivering contracts on time, safely and on the money.

Prof. Phillip Jones – A ZERO-CARBON BUILT ENVIRONMENT?
Professor Phillip Jones will share his experiences as a building scientist. He will offer practical insights based on his design and research work for buildings at an individual and urban scale. He is Emeritus Professor of Architectural Science at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, where from 2002 to 2013, he was Head of School. His research and teaching are in the field of low energy, low carbon, and sustainable design in the built environment. He set up and chaired the Low Carbon Research Institute (LCRI), an £80 million research program across six Welsh universities (2008 to 2015). He was appointed as distinguished visiting research professor at Hong Kong University (2015 – 2018), and is now a Visiting Professor, and was international ‘Master Academic’ adviser on the Low Carbon Buildings ‘111’ project at Tianjin University. He chaired the Welsh Building Regulation Advisory Committee for 11 years (up to 2022) since its devolution to Wales. For some 20 years he has chaired Warm Wales, a charity with 46 staff whose aim is to improve vulnerable householder’s well-being and reduce fuel poverty in Wales. He has worked as a consultant on a range of projects including energy positive housing, green hospital design and zero energy offices. He is a partner in the Swiss based consultancy, Jones Kopitsis AG, in the field of environment design. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineering (FCIBSE) and a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng.). In 1999, he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales, and since 2007 has been a Fellow of the Institute of Welsh Affairs. He was awarded an OBE in the 2020 Queens New Years Honours list for services to Architecture and Decarbonisation.