Speakers

Gary is the Chief Executive of Woodknowledge Wales (www.woodknowledgewales.co.uk), which is a for-public-good member organisation focused upon the transformation of Wales into a socially equitable, zero carbon, high-value forest nation. Gary is also co-founder and Chair of the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (www.asbp.org.uk)which is a materially agnostic membership alliance that champions sustainable, healthy and circular construction products and business models. Gary is a construction engineer by training and early career. After completing a wood science masters, Gary spent a formative few years at the at the BioComposites Centre in Bangor as a researcher where he became inspired by the technical possibilities of plant-based materials. In 1995, armed with this knowledge, Gary established a fully integrated hemp and flax processing plant in North Wales and contracted the growing of fibre crops all over England and Wales. Over the following 20 years Gary was responsible for developing and manufacturing a range of bio-products including horticultural and automotive nonwovens, hemp particleboard and hemp fibre insulation.