Navigating Green Energy & Sustainability Under the Current U.S. Administration
How to Generate Returns in Times of Pressure & Turbulence

Since 1992, Chris has been involved in environmental and sustainable project developments across Africa and channeled his focus into waste from 1999. He founded and headed USE-IT the Waste Materials Recovery Industry Development Programme in Durban, South Africa from 2009 to 2020 facilitating more than 2600 jobs in the waste and recycling sector in that time, leveraging 4.5 times their funding in landfill savings to the municipality and additional 10 times that funding in commercial project development. This created a model for green economic development and innovation in South Africa that worked. Chris deals in every aspect of the waste stream to explore, invent, and create sustainable opportunities in waste beneficiation that touch on waste management, water management, infrastructure, energy, social upliftment, environmental benefit, economic development, low-carbon development, enterprise development, and skills development – all key aspects of sustainability and drivers of the Circular Economy.

In 2016, Chris directed his efforts to build the African Circular Economy Network (ACEN) to ensure that lessons learned in transitioning to a sustainable circular future could be taken across the continent with strategic links globally. With a great group of professional and passionate members, ACEN is now the go-to organization for circularity in Africa with 42 member countries and many North-South and South-South agreements on collaboration. To bring additional capacity to this structure and the continent, Chris co-founded the ACEN Foundation in 2021. Chris also drives several commercial companies in project development, and his passion and vision are to transition corporations and countries to a circular economy where waste is a resource.