Iris Anderson BEM
The newly formed association promoting the bioeconomy in the UK, BBIA, has appointed long-serving civil servant Iris Anderson as their first Ambassador for the bioeconomy.
Iris has spent most of her career in MAFF, DEFRA and more recently in the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Her various roles have included Head of Energy Innovation and Head of Renewable Materials. . She was the UK policy lead for the EU Lead Market Initiative on bio-based products and formulated the main recommendations accepted by the Commission. She sponsored the National Non Food Crops Centre and worked on various projects and programmes including injecting biomethane into the national gas grid, the Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Facility at CPI, the High Value Manufacturing Catapult in Wilton and the Renewable House at BRE.
She has recently worked on business innovation promoting bio-renewable opportunities to businesses and provided consultancy and advice to businesses that develop and adopt bio-renewables. Her work has given her a unique knowledge of the various stakeholders in the biomass industries including industry, academia and innovation bodies. She has supported bioenergy and biomass developments and other related initiatives in renewables.
BBIA Managing Director David Newman stated that “we are very proud Iris has joined forces with us in promoting the bioeconomy in the UK. The massive potential for using biomass to produce materials is largely underestimated in the political and financial arenas and Iris, with her extensive knowledge and experience, will help us to more effectively communicate this potential and how it can be achieved”.
Iris Anderson stated “ I feel very passionate about promoting the benefits of the bioeconomy so I am volunteering some of my time. BBIA’s challenge is to communicate the development potential to industry, politicians and the financial world, and I am looking forward to helping them do this.”
Contact : David Newman MD, BBIA at dn@bbia.org.uk