Getting to know you...Lesley Sloss

Please introduce yourself. 

I’m Professor Lesley Sloss, a project manager at EPRI International with over 35 years’ experience in energy utilities.

My focus is capacity building to reduce emissions from the coal sector in emerging economies (India, Indonesia, Vietnam).

How and why did you get into the environmental industry? Honestly?

I wanted to be a Forensic Scientist like my dad, but he ran the sector, so it wasn’t an option.

I published 17 papers during my PhD in microbiology which landed me a job as a technical writer for the International Energy Agency’s Coal Research Centre. I stayed there for over 30 years. After writing about something for a few decades, you pick up a bit of technical knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject.

Where do you see the industry going in the next five/10 years? 

The energy sector is crucial for global development, yet its operation is often driven by environmental and economic goals that are not easy to implement in practice.

Strategies that work in western economies cannot be directly applied to developing regions, necessitating the reworking of old ideas, and requiring strategic changes. This constantly evolving landscape makes it an engaging and dynamic career.

What's your strangest story since entering the industry? 

One social session after a conference I ran in Australia decades ago led to a team of us devising a means for estimating emission inventories for policy analysts. It was literally a back-of-the-beer-coaster idea.

A random dinner conversation with a colleague in Geneva a few months later led to full funding from Environment Canada to deliver the project and the resulting program is now an official UN tool.

Never underestimate the importance of networking. Keep producing ideas and sharing them. And go to all the social events.

What's your favourite professional experience? 

I am a female in a male-dominated sector. The ratio is changing but not as fast as it could.

Last year I was recognised as a “Pioneer woman in industry” and I spoke, with other winners, to a room full of young career women in a developing country.

Since then, I have spoken at several events on gender imbalance and it’s exciting to be part of that movement. Oh, and riding on a coal belt in a deep under-sea mine in Wales, decades ago, was fun.

Why do you love working in environmental sciences? 

The gap between goals for environmental improvement and the reality of achieving them is widening.

Big developments are needed in the energy sector - even clean energy isn’t truly clean. Rare earth elements, PFAS – there is always something new to worry about.

But, from my position at EPRI and as a visiting professor at Strathclyde and Macquarie Universities, I can see that the current and future generations are up for the challenge.

What are your professional hopes for the future? 

Am I allowed to say “retirement”? I am already working part-time and enjoy the flexibility.

However, the long Christmas break made me realize that my brain isn’t ready to switch to reading fiction full-time. There’s still life (and project ideas) in the old girl yet.

What do you get up to away from your professional life? 

My family are amazing, and I have two perfect grandchildren. My eldest son is a comedian so I try to be tour-granny as much as I can.

We are off to Australia for most of April for gigs and I am really looking forward to that.

Are there any equipment recommendations you can make and why? 

I would never assume that I know best. But I know a lot of people in the industry who I could recommend you talk to, depending on what you need.

The more I travel, the more it is clear that we need a range of options. For example, the emission monitoring approaches which work on almost crystal-clear stacks in Japan may not work quite so well on a somewhat “crunchier” plume of an industrial boiler out in India. That is the joy of the CEM (Conference on Emissions Monitoring) events, and the work ILM does.

There normally isn’t only one technical monitoring solution or only one ideal vendor – you need to talk through the relevant options with several experts. And, in terms of cleaning up coal combustion facilities, you need to talk to people who have hands-on experience with operating real units and who understand the full balance-of-plant picture, such as the team at EPRI.

Never ask one person for a recommendation – ask as many people as you can.

Anything else you'd like to add? 

Network, network and network some more – the best solutions come from collaboration.