UK Government Air Pollution Monitoring Contract Win Leads to Stronger Air Quality Team

The UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has awarded Ricardo-AEA (UK) a major three year contract to deliver quality assurance and quality control services to the UK’s largest air quality monitoring network, the Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN).

This important UK-wide air pollution monitoring work helps the UK Government fulfil its statutory European reporting requirements, as well as supporting air quality research and policy development. The data produced by the network is relied upon by a wide variety of stakeholders – including vulnerable members of the public – and underpins policy made at both local and national levels.

The UK’s AURN has been delivering data since the early 1970s, and comprises 149 monitoring stations across the UK producing 5.5 million measurements every year. As data volumes increase, Ricardo-AEA continues to lead the way in Europe in establishing common quality assurance procedures for efficient and open reporting.

“We look forward to supporting Defra over the next three years through the provision of accurate and reliable measurements of air pollutants across the UK,” said Ricardo-AEA’s practice director for Air Quality and Environment Sean Christiansen. “Ricardo-AEA has an outstanding track record in the provision of air monitoring network services to governments. This contract award reinforces Ricardo-AEA’s position as Europe’s premier Air Quality Consultancy.”

In parallel with this key contract win, Ricardo-AEA’s Air Quality team has also been significantly strengthened by the recruitment of four leading environmental policy and sustainability experts; Ben Grebot, Dr David Carslaw, Dr Betty Ng and Tim Scarbrough.

Ben Grebot brings over 12 years’ experience of delivering high profile projects for national governments, the European Commission, and industry in the fields of air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, chemicals, agriculture and water policy. He joins Ricardo-AEA from Amec Foster Wheeler where he headed-up the environmental policy and economics team. Prior to this he worked in the Air Quality Division at Defra.

David Carslaw is a leading authority on urban air pollution and a member of the UK’s Air Quality Expert Group. He has led national level projects aimed at improving the understanding of urban air pollution, including better characterisation of vehicle emissions in urban areas, and the development of innovative data analysis techniques. Carslaw joins Ricardo-AEA from the Environmental Research Group at King's College London.

Betty Ng joins Ricardo-AEA with over 20 years’ experience in the delivery of prestigious international environmental projects in sectors that include oil and gas, power, chemicals, transport, industrial and commercial development. Her previous roles have included technical director of ERM’s Hong Kong office and lead for the UK Environment Agency’s Air Quality Modelling and Assessment Unit.

Tim Scarbrough, an air quality and climate change policy specialist, brings considerable experience of working with UK central government and the European Commission on a wide range of environmental policy development notably in support of the industrial emissions and transport sectors. He has previously held consulting roles at ICF International and Amec.

Robert Bell, Ricardo-AEA’s Managing Director, commented: “Our UK and International client base has expanded rapidly in the last 18 months. The experience that Ben, David, Betty and Tim bring to Ricardo-AEA complements the capabilities of our existing team, ensuring that our clients around the world continue to have access to the world leading expertise that they have grown to expect from us.”