CPET staff: Solène leaving and Nick starting

Solène joined the CPET team in January 2009, as the awareness coordinator for the UK Government’s sustainable timber procurement policy and was also seconded to the Defra timber procurement team for 3 days per week. She says “During the past 9 months, I really enjoyed meeting motivated people from various sectors, spreading the message about the policy and contributing to provide support for its implementation. I am now moving on to a new job in Nairobi but will keep very nice memories of my time in CPET and am grateful for being given that opportunity. Nick, who has just been appointed as my replacement will do a great job.”

Nick Moss started on 21 September. He has a broad background in natural resource management, sustainability and environmental policy. Nick has previous experience in developing awareness raising campaigns and public and private sector engagement. In particular he worked in Fiji as an ecological researcher, assessing marine and terrestrial resource use and developing environmental awareness campaigns in local coastal communities. Previous to this he worked in the UK in engineering consultancy on sustainability projects and business development in various private and public infrastructure sectors. More recently Nick graduated from Oxford University with an MSc in Environmental Policy.

He will implement the awareness raising strategy that has been agreed last January and that has three main target audiences: the UK government, Local Authorities and Universities as well as the private sector. CPET has secured an extra budget for 2010 to be able to attend major shows and exhibitions (Ecobuild 2010, Procurement Solutions Live 2010 and the Local Government Association annual conference 2010).

He will work closely with Defra to liaise with central departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies for which the policy is mandatory and with WWF UK and the Timber Trade Federation on the engagement campaign with Local Authorities.

Nick will build on CPET’s available tools and contacts to deliver the campaigns goal. As usual, if you would like to request a short awareness session (15 to 60 minutes) for your organisation or would like to invite CPET to an event or to write an article for your newsletter or publication, please contact him on nick@proforest.net.