Peter can integrate strategic thinking for sustainability into university-wide strategy and policy, aligning with business need as well as supporting the three key pillars of sustainability. Having held three very different strategic leadership and management roles (ICT, Project Leadership & Sustainability) he has unique insight into the business needs of different parts of any HE institution.
Uniquely, Peter has worked with and led both professional service and academic teams and individuals, developing understanding of the complexities and challenges associated with whole organisational change. He is committed to active listening and in-building coalition across difference.
Peter has 16 years of experience in ICT, culminating in a 5-year tenure as the Director of Computing Services at CCCU. He then served as the Joint Project Director for the construction of an award-winning (SCONUL) Library and Learning Centre in Canterbury. Following this, Peter spent 14 years as the Director of Sustainability Development, focusing on strategic and tactical organizational change. He led a team of academic and professional services colleagues to develop a Student Green Office, a 5-year curriculum development project, and an ISO14001 certified Environmental Management System (EMS) for the entire institution. Through collaborative efforts across the University, they transformed the grounds, halved the carbon footprint, and embedded ‘Sustainable Futures’ into the new University Strategy.
How has Peter recently supported organisations?
- Collaborated on the iBorrow project that explored the development and use of different learning spaces within the new Library and Learning Centre (CCCU) – a match-funded JISC project
- Developed institutional-wide EMS for CCCU through the EcoCampus process, achieving ISO14001 certification in 2013 involving a broad range of stakeholders, both academic and professional services, for more than 10 years, achieving more than 50% carbon reduction
- Led the CCCU Green Academy Team that developed the Futures Initiative, an institutional-wide initiative that funded more than 100 curriculum development projects – this resulted in an Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE)
- Co-authored a Bloomsbury Academic book entitled ‘Leadership for Sustainability in HE’
Outside of work Peter’s passion is renovating boats and being on the water. An interesting fact about Peter is that his Great, Great Grandfather (WBR), known as the poet Lauriat of the Victorian nursery rhyme, published under many pseudonyms and kept two independent families until his death. In 2010 Natalie Merchant turned one of these rhymes ‘Topsy Turvey World’ into a reggae song.