Sustainable Future Awards

Chair

Emma Wilcox

CEO, Society for the Environment

Emma is chair of the judging panel for the IOM3 Sustainable Future Awards 2023.  Emma joined the Society for the Environment as CEO in July 2015 and over the last six years has successfully overseen growth in the number of registered environmental professionals whilst also ensuring the reputation of Chartered Environmentalists and Registered Environmental Technicians has been enhanced and maintained. Particular recent success includes ensuring registered environmental professional’s collective voice has influenced policy, the introduction of the REnvP Register for Environmental Practitioners and enhancing the Society's governance.

Emma began her career at the National Physical Laboratory after completing her PhD in physical metallurgy at the University of Surrey and her degree and Masters in Materials Science at Brunel University.

Building on her academic background, Emma’s career has spanned knowledge transfer, training and skills across various technical disciplines. Having established the Energy and Efficiency Industrial Partnership and playing critical roles in creating two Skills Academies, Emma became the Chief Executive of the Society for the Environment, the Chartered Organisation responsible for registering environmental professionals, in 2015.

Emma is a Chartered Environmentalist and Fellow of IOM3 as well as a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10k Small Business Programme.
As well as the Chair of the IOM3 Sustainability Development Group (SDG), Emma is a member of the UK Government’s Green Apprenticeships Advisory Panel (GAAP) and a Board Member of the Future Water Association.

Emma is passionate about sustainable development, noting that ‘many of the environmental challenges we face stem from our use of materials’.

Cynthia Adu

Sustainability Consultant, Accenture

Cynthia is a sustainability consultant at Accenture UKI sustainability service. Cynthia works with businesses to support the transition to a Net-Zero future by applying her knowledge of sustainable materials and manufacturing. Cynthia leads competency in life cycle assessments (LCA), which involves the development of tools to help model environmental impacts associated with products. In addition to applying sustainability and circular economy principles to mitigate these environmental impacts.

Cynthia holds an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) and MSc in Sustainable materials and manufacturing – jointly awarded by Cranfield, Exeter, and Warwick university. Her research focused on implementing a circular business model to convert industrial by-products into value for other industries such as construction, textiles, packaging, and composite materials.

Cynthia first became involved with IOM3 as a member of the Student & Early Career Committee in 2018 and is now currently a strategic advisor to IOM3, supporting the technical committee on skills and professional development. Cynthia is very interested in implementing sustainability knowledge in STEM courses. She has contributed to several panels and public outreach, like skills and capacity building for the circular economy, volunteering with the United Nations University on implementing sustainability assessment methods in post-graduate courses of developing countries, and mentorship to young black school students to show representation and importance of sustainability in STEM subjects.

Chair, IOM3 Packaging Group

Jude Allan

Jude started as a packaging technologist at the drinks division of Mars before taking the experience of life as a client over to the world of a packaging design agency.

For almost 20 years Jude championed and led the production and creative operations at jonesknowlesrtichie as it grew from a London based packaging design agency to a global design business with offices in London, New York, Singapore and Shanghai.

Jude and her team were responsible for delivering creative packaging designs into market for a wide range of much-loved brands from global favourites to local heroes as well as launching new start-up brands.

Working closely with brands such as Budweiser, Mars, Molton Brown, McVitie’s, Dulux paints and Hippeas, she has a rich and varied experience of the packaging industry, the challenges of innovation and the needs of brand owners to respond to their consumers demands.

 In 2018 she took on the role of chief operating officer at a start-up engineering agency in London with a manufacturing and project management office in Shenzhen, China. She spent a frenetic eighteen months at RPD International professionalising the business and developing the skills of a young group of entrepreneurs and engineers.

Jude now chairs the IOM3 Packaging Group.

She has a BEng in Materials Science and the IOM3 Diploma of Packaging Technology.

Dr Sarah Connolly CEng MIMMM

Innovation Technologist, Innovate UK

Sarah is an Innovation Technologist at Innovate UK, supporting the Foundation Industries to be sustainable and internationally competitive. 
She studied her for her MEng in Materials Science at Mansfield College, Oxford and DPhil at Wolfson College, Oxford. Her research focused on novel alloy development for the Nuclear Industry working closely with Rolls Royce and the National Nuclear Laboratory. 

Sarah has been in the Materials Processing Industry for the past 7 years, initially conducting research at both the University of Oxford and WMG, University of Warwick, before joining Innovate UK. In 2020, she was awarded the Frank Fitzgerald Medal and Travel Award for excellence in professional development and breadth of technical knowledge.  

She has continued to be a strong supporter of Education & Skills; being an active STEM ambassador since 2012; running the Focus on Materials Science Residential Headstart Course at the University of Oxford between 2012 to 2017; being a founding member of the Making Materials Matter Outreach Project in 2017, developing the Investigating Chocolate programme; and being a Governor of a local Academy from 2020. 

She continues to represent Early Career Professionals on the IOM3 Advisory Council, the Iron and Steel Board, and is the Chair of the Coventry and Warwickshire Materials Society. She has recently founded the Foundation Industries Future Leaders Group, with ED&I and the future skills requirements for the processing industries high on the agenda. 

In her spare time, she is a keen runner, cyclist and baker.

Roger Harrabin

Energy and Environment Analyst , BBC

Roger Harrabin is the BBC's energy and environment analyst, and one of their senior journalists on the environment and energy. He has broadcast on environmental issues since the 1980s and has won many awards in print, TV and radio. Aside from his speciality he has covered many major general news stories.

He is an honorary Fellow at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, a visiting fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford, an Associate Press Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and has received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Cranfield University.

Mark Miodownik

Professor of Materials & Society, UCL

Mark Miodownik is the UCL Professor of Materials & Society.  He received his PhD in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University, and has worked as a materials engineer in the USA, Ireland and the UK. For more than twenty years he has championed materials science research that links to the arts and humanities, medicine, and society. This culminated in the establishment of the UCL Institute of Making, where he is a director and runs the research programme.  Mark also recently set up the Plastic Waste Innovation Hub to carry our research into solving the environmental catastrophe of plastic waste dealing with topics such as biodegradable plastics and product reuse and repairability. Mark is the multi-award winning author of New York Times bestselling book Stuff Matters. He regularly presents BBC TV and radio programmes on materials science and engineering.  In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2018 he was awarded an MBE for services to materials science, engineering and broadcasting.

Robert Quarshie

Head of Materials and Nanotechnology, The Knowledge Transfer Network

Robert leads all materials activities at KTN. He was a key member of the Materials Innovation and Growth Team (Mat IGT) that developed the UK Strategy for Materials; and previously worked as Senior Technology Advisor for BIS. A materials technologist and business school graduate.

He was awarded the British Technology Group Prize in 1985 for his PhD research in high energy density batteries. Robert was a key member of the Materials Innovation and Growth Team (Mat IGT) that developed the UK Strategy for Materials in 2006.

Robert has more than twenty years’ industry experience working in polymeric and metallic coatings for steel and aluminium, including senior management roles at Tata Steel.