Peter is a civil and structural engineer who has become a recognised world leader in major bridges, advanced composite technology and in sustainable development in cities and regions with leadership posts in AECOM and Arup. He has won many awards for his work including the Award of Merit of IABSE and in 2009 the Sir Frank Whittle medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering for a lifetime contribution to Innovation in Engineering and the Environment.
He joined Arup in 2004 to create and lead their planning and integrated urbanism team, which by 2011 had doubled in size to 800 people.
In 2008 he was named by the Guardian Newspaper as one of 50 people that could ‘save the planet’.
He was cited by Time magazine in 2008 as one of 30 global eco-heroes and has been one of CNN’s Principle Voices.
In 2011 he was awarded the CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to Civil Engineering and the Environment.
In April 2011 he left Arup to set up The Ecological Sequestration Trust, a Charity which has brought together the world’s top scientists, engineers , economists, financiers and other specialists to create a GIS platform to enable regions all over the world to plan, design and implement inclusive resilient growth using low carbon urban-rural development approaches which are energy, water and food secure. A key part of the approach is to make use of remote sensing data, fed into a human-ecology-economics systems model for practical collaborative planning and investment.