Margaret is Executive Director of OPRL and a visiting professor of Sustainable Wastes Management at the University of Northampton.
Margaret has a PhD in landfill microbiology having worked in wastes and resource management for over 30 years. She is also a fellow of CIWM, a fellow of IOM3, an International Wastes Manager and a Chartered Environmentalist.
Mark Miodownik is the UCL Professor of Materials & Society. 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.
Mark is the multi-award winning author of New York Times bestselling book Stuff Matters and he regularly presents BBC TV and radio programmes on materials science and engineering including the Dare to repair series on BBC Radio 4. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and in 2018 he was awarded an MBE for services to materials science, engineering and broadcasting.
As well as working on the Eliminating Waste workstream of the Tesco partnership, at the World Wildlife Fund UK Paula provides internal and external technical expertise on materials issues including plastics, with her policy and advocacy work focusing more broadly on resources and waste.
She is the current chair of the Wildlife and Countryside Link’s Resources and Waste Working Group and sits on several advisory groups including UKRI’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Advisory Group. Her background is in packaging and product development, working at several touchpoints of the packaging supply chain and within FMCG and retail for over 20 years at businesses including Proctor & Gamble, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Pret.
Following a career in Quality Assurance within Aerospace Engineering, Paul has worked within retail quality assurance and compliance for over 20 years.
Today, Paul heads up the Quality Assurance Team at Toolstation, who have around 500 stores. Toolstation being one of the fastest growing retailers, his role covers quality assurance, legal compliance, ethical sourcing and environment with environmental, social, and corporate governance and sustainability being the central to his role. Toolstation is part of Travis Perkins PLC the UK's largest builders merchant and Paul is part of the Responsible Sourcing team.
Stuart is a recognised expert, leader and innovator across sustainability, packaging and global food supply chains with in-depth knowledge and experience in sustainable sourcing and packaging strategies across the retail and manufacturing sectors.
He is also a non-executive director at OPRL, having been involved at director level since its inception in 2009 while he was Head of Packaging at Sainsbury’s.
Michelle is responsible for leading the company’s sustainability strategy and implementation plans across the region, setting inspirational goals to help the company realise its vision of Growing for Good. Michelle has aligned the company’s action on sustainability to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and drives results for the benefit of the environment and society.
She has also implemented the health and wellbeing plan for Suntory Beverage and Food GBI and spearheaded the company’s first movement fund, resulting in the development of B Active, a programme which aims to improve the lives and prospects of young people aged 16 to 24 through access to sport and physical activity.