JEREMY EPPEL

Jeremy Eppel has been Deputy Director leading the Farming for the Future Programme (formerly the Sustainable Agriculture Strategy Division) of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) since February 2005. He is responsible for strategy policy development on sustainable farming, and is the key official adviser on these issues to Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn MP.

Jeremy leads the Government’s work on policies to ensure that agriculture’s environmental impact is reduced, including in the area of climate change, based on sound scientific evidence and economic analysis. As part of this, he heads Defra’s cross-cutting project to promote faster growth in the use of anaerobic digestion, as well as work on cross-compliance, set-aside and environmental management systems in farming. Jeremy has led the UK Government’s collaboration with China on sustainable agriculture under the UK-China Sustainable Development Dialogue, in particular the creation of the Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN), and he has been a member of the SAIN Governing Board since its inception. Jeremy is also co-chair of the Agriculture Sub-committee of the international Methane to Markets Partnership, and of the OECD’s Joint Working Party on Agriculture and Environment.

Jeremy was Head of Defra’s Sustainable Energy Policy Division from 2000 to 2005, responsible for policy on energy efficiency, Combined Heat and Power and fuel poverty. He took a leading role in developing and implementing the UK Energy White Paper (Our Energy Future – Creating a Low Carbon Economy) and at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, had an active role in creating of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP).

From 1992 to 2000, Jeremy was Counsellor in the Environment Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where he played a major part in the development of the OECD’s programme on sustainable development and was in charge of its work on sustainable consumption and production, outreach to the private sector and key international organizations, and the organisation of three Environment Ministerial meetings.

Before moving to the OECD, Jeremy held a number of posts in the UK Departments of the Environment and Transport, and was private secretary to two junior Ministers.

He has an MA in Geography from Cambridge University.