Sophie is a senior consultant specialising in the area of
sustainable materials and biobased products. She works with a wide range of public
and private sector clients, including SME technology developers, multinational
companies and investors, helping to de-risk business decisions around commercial
development and investment. She also has a special interest in biobased platform chemicals.
Sophie’s rapidly growing project portfolio reflects her broad
knowledge of key market and policy areas across the bio-based economy. Her experience
includes the market and opportunity analysis of chemical, polymer, technology and feedstock sectors; the sustainability appraisal of products and materials; industry stakeholder analysis and engagement; and the assessment of EU & UK renewable energy and environmental policy.
She is currently responsible for the delivery of NNFCC outputs as part of the UKRI funded Furafact project which, alongside Unilever, Croda and the University of York, is investigating the potential of novel high performance surfactants from biobased building blocks. Sophie is also a key player in the H2020 Shikifactory100 project, working on the sustainability appraisal of chemical compounds arising from lab-based, research-focused work packages.
Other notable past projects include:
Sophie’s interest in the bioeconomy stems from her experiences as an undergraduate student at the University of York. She graduated with a BSc in Chemistry, after completing her final year research project in the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, working on the valorisation of food waste for the recovery of value-added compounds. She then pursued a Master’s degree in Green Chemistry at Imperial College London where she was involved in developing a novel lignocellulosic biomass pre-treatment process to improve the commercial viability of second-generation biofuel production.