My Job
I focus on ‘impact lobbying’and ‘market-led sustainability’.
It means that I help sustainable frontrunner business cases to advocate for more ambitious EU climate, environment, and industrial policies, in order to help make their practices to become the norm for the market.
Why? I believe that we will build prosperous and sustainable societies only if the business community and entrepreneurs are pulling in that direction too. To help them, doing business in a sustainable way needs to be the most profitable choice. And we need to unleash sustainability as a market force.
EU Regulation plays a vital role in that. It makes or breaks business cases. So it needs to support frontrunners, thereby turning sustainability leadership into a competitive advantage and fostering policy-driven growth.
To deliver this vision, I bring sustainable frontrunners and EU policy-makers together, so that they in turn can make informed decisions when legislating and deciding on the future direction of their business cases.
Concretely, this means that I will help you to understand the EU political and decision-making systems, its actors, its policies and regulations. And I will help you to design and execute advocacy strategies to deliver your objectives as well as sustainability-minded regulatory frameworks.
I do all of this as part of the incredible team of ambitious and talented people at #SustainablePublicAffairs, who – day in and day out – make the difference that turns vision into reality.
My Experience
I have over 10 years of experience working in and around the EU institutions / Brussels.
I worked in the European Commission and the UK government, before taking the leap into public affairs.
Practicing public affairs, I have worked across a diverse portfolio: with businesses – ranging from innovative start-up and scale-ups through to multinational corporates-, trade associations and NGOs.
I have worked with a variety of sectors, including:
- Cleantech innovators and investors
- Circular Economy (chemicals, construction, materials, packaging, textiles, carbon capture and utilisation (CCU), claims and labelling).
- Energy (batteries, hydrogen, geothermal, renewables)
- Hard-to-abate sectors (steel and aluminium, permanent carbon removals / carbon capture and storage (CCS).
- Mobility (automotive, electric vehicles and electrification infrastructure).
- Sustainable Finance (financial reporting, EU funding, carbon credits and voluntary carbon markets)
Lastly, I am lucky to have the opportunity to teach EU affairs at University-level in France (Sciences-Po).
My Specialisms
My Proudest Achievements
Delivering positive impact through lobbying.
A couple of achievements stand out.
- Bringing together the Cleantech Friendship Group – an Unofficial Grouping of Members of the European Parliament who support the scale-up, manufacturing and deployment of innovative European clean technologies.
- Helping to ensure that the EU regulatory framework is compatible with the financing strategy for a sustainable business case that is building a large-scale plant to remove and permanently store 800 000 tonnes of CO2 every year (supported by the EU Innovation Fund). That represents massive positive impact for the planet and society at large!
My Education
My studies were focused on EU affairs (politics, law, economics).
I studied abroad for university: first at Sciences-Po in France, followed by the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.
My Languages
English, French, German, Spanish, Luxembourgish
My Interests outside work
Communicating about lobbying to showcase its positive impacts. For that I have set up a social media channel: Alex in Brussels 🇪🇺 – more here.
My other passion is football refereeing, which takes me all over Belgium!