Dr Colin Church is the CEO of CIWM, and formerly Director of Environmental Quality at Defra. 

Dr Church has extensive experience in strategic environmental policy making and in his most recent role at Defra was responsible for government policy on issues including climate change adaptation, air quality, industrial pollution prevention, local environment quality, resource efficiency and waste, and sustainable procurement. He managed the Government’s support for waste infrastructure development, led for Defra on climate change mitigation, and was also a non-executive director of WRAP, the waste reduction and resource efficiency body.

In a Civil Service career spanning 21 years, Dr Church has also previously been responsible for overseeing the setting of the fourth UK carbon budget, implementation of the second and negotiation of the third phase of the EU Emissions Trading System, and managing the UK government’s input into negotiation of the revised EU chemicals regime (REACH). He jointly led the successful effort in 2010-11 to reduce central Government carbon emissions by 10% in 12 months, and has also spent time in the Cabinet Office working on better regulation.