Joe Bentley is a Project Manager in the Low Carbon Enterprise team at MEA. Over the last 2 years, Joe has used his technical knowledge and understanding of sustainable energy technologies to deliver a varied range of projects and services to a broad spectrum of clients. Having been heavily involved in the delivery of Project Carbon's support for small businesses, Joe is now primarily focussed on developing and delivering services for the Public and 3^rd sectors, including Local Authorities, community groups and voluntary organisations.

Professional Interests: Woodfuel supply chains, partnership working, efficient lighting technologies, enabling people to take action on sustainability

Qualifications and experience: LANTRA ‘woodfuel production and supply’, A-levels at college, NVQ Environmental Conservation with National Trust. Spent 5 years working for a national retailer including time as a project manager/troubleshooter/problem solver.

Skills: Building relationships, optimising procedures and processes, identifying and solving problems, using my initiative.

Where I've come from: Shropshire, with interludes in Leeds and Devon.

I like: Old buildings, real ale, mountaineering, cooking, peace and quiet, European history, comfortable trousers, trees. I do not like courgettes.

A moral I live my life by: "Dont't believe the hype"

How I'm trying to live more sustainably: I recently got rid of my car and now rely on public transport/bicycles/foot power. At home we minimise plastic use, try to eat local food, use fewer chemicals, compost, reuse and recycle. I pester people to do the same.

I believe the greatest threat to our current society and environment is...the idea of 'Progress', as opposed to progress, which is not neccesarily the same thing.

My 'dirty' secret: I used to live in a house which had a 'D-rated' boiler, no shower, no loft insulation, no draft excluders, single glazed windows, no radiator panels, big gaps under the doors, no heating thermostat, uninsulated solid walls, no green energy tariff, and no low-energy bulbs. I dread to think what the carbon footprint was.

It may suprise you to know but... I seem to have a habit of being struck on the back of the head by the wing-mirrors of passing buses. This has now happened so many times, and in different towns and cities across the UK, that I believe there is some kind of conspiracy among bus drivers.

If thinks had worked out differently I might have been... a mining engineer or a geologist