Dr. Patricia Vangheluwe
Patricia Vangheluwe graduated from the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 1984 with a PhD in Organic Chemistry, followed by a post-Doctorate at the University of Pretoria (South Africa). She also holds a master degree in Controllership from the Vlerick Management School (Ghent, Belgium). She joined Shell in 1989 and held various positions from manager to Senior Vice President in Shell, Montell, Basell and LyondellBasell in the fields of research, marketing, strategy, communications and human resources. She worked in Belgium, Germany, South America and South Africa and travelled extensively around the world. In October 2010 she joined PlasticsEurope to lead their pan-European Technical Department. Together with expert teams, she manages and coordinates the scientific content to support the association’s mission.
Peter Kershaw
Peter Kershaw is an independent consultant in the field of marine environmental protection, based in the UK. He splits his time between consultancy and working within the United Nations and related bodies, largely on a pro bono basis. This follows a career of over 30 years as a research scientist at a UK government research institute, located in Lowestoft on the North Sea coast. He started to develop a particular interest in the issue of marine plastic litter and microplastics in 2008, and since has taken part in a number of international and multidisciplinary assessments of the sources, fate and effects of plastics, and associated contaminants, in the ocean, published in 2015, 2016 and 2017. He is the author of several reports on the topic for UN agencies, including a 2015 study on ‘biodegradable’ plastics, the 2016 report on marine plastics for the 2ndUN Environment Assembly and, most recently, a study exploring alternatives to conventional single-use plastics.
These studies on marine litter have helped to convince him of the need to consider all aspects of the production, use and post-use/end-of-life stages in the life cycle analysis of the plastics economy, and the need to apply a similar approach when considering possible alternatives to conventional polymers. Currently, he has a 3-year, part-time position supporting the EC DGENV in its Environmental Diplomacy with regard to the circular economy, resource efficiency and marine litter, in the context of the G7 and G20 process. He is Chair of GESAMP, a UN advisory body that covers a wide range of marine environmental issues.
Dr. Peter Saling
Peter Saling is currently Director Sustainability methods at BASF. Peter studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen. He started his activities in the field of sustainability with the development of the Eco-Efficiency Analysis together with the German Consultant Roland Berger and Partners. He was as senior scientist involved in the process of implementation of more than 60 studies of Eco-Efficiency. He was project leader for the development and integration of social aspects into the sustainability analysis named SEEbalance. From 2007 to 2013 he was the Head of Eco-Efficiency Analysis and of Sustainability Evaluation within Sustainability Strategy department of BASF. In 2011 he finalized the development of the new AgBalance methodology.
Since 2014 he is responsible as Director for the Sustainability methods of BASF worldwide with centers in USA, Brazil and Asia. He is Chairman since 2104 of the Plastics Europe “Life Cycle Thinking and Sustainability Group”. In the same year he received a lectureship at the Environmental Management and Accounting department of the Technical University of Dresden and is member of the board of the PRISMA center in Dresden. He is Subject-Editor for the “International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment”. Since 2017 he is Chairman of the ISO-Committee TC207/SC5 Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment.”
Dr. Sonia Valdivia
Sonia Valdivia is a Programme Manager at the World Resources Forum since mid August 2014 on the areas of ‘sustainable recycling industries’ and ‘life cycle management’. Before she was Programme Officer at the UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, and has been coordinating the Secretariat of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. She has a PhD in environmental waste management and policies from the Technical University of Karlsruhe and has worked for organizations such as UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research), NACEC (North American Center for Environmental Cooperation), INE (Mexican Institute of Ecology) and as a GIZ coordinator of the Pan-American Network for Environmental Waste Management.
She is a co-author of the UNEP/SETAC “Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment”, “UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Management – How business uses it to decrease footprint, create opportunities and make value chains more sustainable” and the UNEP publication “Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment.”
Prof. Guido Sonnemann
Guido is a full professor for sustainable chemistry and material management at the University of Bordeaux. Before joining the University of Bordeaux in 2012, he worked as a UNEP Programme Officer for Innovation and Life Cycle Management. In this function he also servedas the Science Focal Point for the UNEP’s Resource Efficiency/ Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) subprogramme. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University Rovira & Virgili, Spain (2002), M.Sc. in water biology and chemistry from the University of Poitiers, France (1996), and graduated as engineer from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany (1995) with a specialisation in environmental engineering. Guido is co-founder of the FSLCI and currently Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee.
