Director of policy and evaluation at the Waste & Resources Action Programme since 2001, Mr Georgeson was a key figure in its formation as part of the government’s Waste Strategy 2000.
He was also awarded an MBE in the millennium honours list for his work in sustainable waste management.
“I will leave WRAP with immense pride in what we have achieved.” – Ray Georgeson, WRAP
Banbury-based WRAP, which is tasked by the government to develop recycling in the UK, has been ordered by Defra to cut its spending by 30% from next month (see letsrecycle.com story).
It said today that Mr Georgeson’s position will not be filled after his departure.
His stepping down is seen as significant, because Mr Georgeson is one of WRAP’s high-earners, with a salary of around £100,000 a year. It is expected that WRAP chief executive Liz Goodwin could have to make some difficult decisions about other senior WRAP figures as it prepares its new slimmed-down Business Plan.
Going forward, Mr Georgeson’s policy team will continue to work under Patrick Mahon, who will now report directly to Dr Goodwin. The evaluation team, led by Barbara Leach, will report to finance director Hugh Etheridge, who will bear responsibility for delivering WRAP’s financial and operational targets.
Mr Georgeson, who is well known in the recycling and waste sector, is to start his own consultancy business based at his new home in Yorkshire.
Dr Goodwin said today: “Ray has made an outstanding and in many ways unique contribution to the waste and resource management landscape in the UK. His standing in the sector is immense and many of WRAP’s achievements over the past eight years can be directly tracked to him.
“We will all miss Ray’s enthusiasm, wide strategic grasp of the issues and imaginative solutions. Although he is moving on he has made it clear he wants to stay in close contact and I welcome that,” she added.
Experience
Mr Georgeson’s experience in the recycling and the community waste sector stretches back more than two decades, when he started out as a local Friends of the Earth campaigner and volunteer on recycling collections in the early 1980s.
Ray’s standing in the sector is immense and many of WRAP’s achievements over the past eight years can be directly tracked to him
Dr Liz Goodwin, WRAP
This culminated in his leading the national waste education and awareness charity Waste Watch from 1996 to 2000, during which time he was also working closely with the then Department of Environment, Transport and the Region, and the Department of Trade and Industry in developing the original proposal to establish WRAP.
On its launch in the autumn of 2000, Mr Georgeson was the very first senior appointment in WRAP made by founding chief executive Jennie Price.
He was a key figure in drawing up WRAP’s first three-year, £30 million Business Plan, and went on to oversee the development of three further WRAP Business Plans. And, he supported the Cabinet Office review of the English waste strategy that led to WRAP expanding its remit into a £75 million-a-year government-funded recycling delivery body.
Commenting on his departure, WRAP chairman Vic Cocker said: “I have known and worked with Ray for nine years and his contribution to WRAP has been immense. I have valued and respected his wise counsel and practical solutions, based on a deep knowledge of and commitment to waste and recycling issues. I am grateful to him for his role in making WRAP successful and wish him well in his new ventures.”
After taking an unpaid six-month sabbatical from January to July last year to consider his future, Mr Georgeson has decided to start his own business, developing a freelance portfolio in the waste and resources sector as well as pursuing new interests.
He said today: “I will leave WRAP with immense pride in what we have achieved. Leaving behind so many great friends and colleagues is hard, but after eight years at WRAP it is the right time to move on.
“I have a new home in Yorkshire and am entering a very happy new stage of my personal life, all of which has made balancing my time and commitments the more difficult. My sabbatical last year gave me space to think all these things through, and I am looking forward now to developing a new freelance portfolio role and contributing to our sector in a different way.”
Mr Georgeson added: “I leave WRAP in good shape and ambitious for the future. It will go on from strength to strength under Liz Goodwin’s leadership.”
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