Staff and Volunteers

George Marshall, Founder and Director of Projects

George has twenty years experience in research and campaigning and outreach for environmental and indigenous rights organisations. He has worked as a senior campaigner for Greenpeace and the Rainforest Foundation, and as a policy consultant to the German and Papua New Guinean governments. He has authored fifteen major reports and won nine awards for his video documentary work.

Before joining COIN George was one of the founders and co-ordinators of Rising Tide, a national network of grassroots climate change campaign groups. He has spoken and written widely on climate change issues and sustainable lifestyles including articles for The New Statesman, The Guardian, and The Ecologist. He is the author of Carbon Detox (www.carbondetox.org) a popular book offering "fresh ways to think about personal action to climate change" and is the creator of the blogsite www.climatedenial.org which examines our psychological responses to climate change. His 1930's terraced house in Oxford (www.theyellowhouse.org.uk) is a case study in eco-renovation and achieved 60% reductions in energy and water use.  

Janey Forgan, Operations Manager

Janey joined COIN in July 2009 as the part-time Manager of Operations, responsible for the organisation’s administrative and financial management.

Janey has worked for a number of years in the International Development sector, previously as the finance manager of SOS Sahel International UK, and as an internal auditor for Oxfam.  In addition to her COIN work, she also is the finance director of another environmental NGO, Pond Conservation. 

Hannah Smith, Refugee Project Manager

Hannah currently manages Defending Rights - Environmental Migration, a programme of work that seeks to build a platform for civil society engagement on environmental migration and defend the rights of those at risk of displacement due to climate change.

She coordinates the UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition and the Refugee & Migrant Forum on Climate Change. Before joining COIN Hannah worked primarily in campaigns and research on a diverse range of issues, from Woman’s Rights to Illegal Logging. She holds an L.L.B with Honours in Environmental, International and Trade Law and more recently completed an MSc in Environment and Resource Management. She is currently a Training Facilitator for Voluntary Services Overseas.
Hannah has spent a number of years overseas, working in various capacities in international development for organisations based in Sri Lanka, Swaziland and Cambodia.

She is lead author of the report Forced Migration and Climate Change: the challenge for refugee and environmental NGOs is the UK. Hannah joined COIN in January 2009.

Adam Corner - Policy Adviser

Adam is a researcher and writer who specialises in the psychology of communicating climate change. In addition to his Policy Advisor role at COIN, he is a Research Associate in the Understanding Risk group at Cardiff University. He writes regularly for national media including the Guardian, New Scientist and the Ecologist.

Anthony Armitage - Carbon Conversations Manager

Anthony is very new to COIN and is taking the lead on the Carbon Conversations programme.  For more information on Carbon Conversations, please click here.
He has worked as a Community Energy Efficiency Officer for West Berkshire Council over the past two years and has been supporting grassroots action south of the Oxfordshire border. He’s had a varied career, predominantly working in community development and is keen to help people make the transition to live a lower-impact lifestyle.

Siân Charnley – Fundraiser

Siân has recently retired from teaching. Climate change is a priority and for this reason she is happy to spend voluntary time doing any administrative tasks in the COIN office.

Siân has been concerned about the environment all her adult life. For example, it is over thirty years since she decided for environmental reasons not to fly again and not to learn to drive. Previous campaigning and voluntary work have centred around nuclear weapons (early 1980s)and,more recently, visiting asylum seekers in detention. 

Steve Gerrish - Carbon Conversations volunteer

Steve previously worked for the Potato Council for 25 years where he provided an information service to staff and potato growers, moving into knowledge transfer work in the latter part of his career there.  He took redundancy when the organisation relocated to Warwickshire in July 2009 and volunteered for COIN from September 2009 to July 2010, at the same time embarking on studies for MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies at the Centre for Alternative Technology.  Following completion of his thesis, Steve stepped in for 4 months to complete the transfer of Carbon Conversations into COIN’s care, and has now agreed to continue supporting the programme as a volunteer.

Tom Daltas - Volunteer Speaker Series Events Coordinator

Tom recently joined COIN to organise the third instalment in the highly successful Speaker Series.  The Series will seek to re-engage the public with climate change as one of the defining issues of our era at a time when public interest and even belief in it are at a relative low while economic concerns dominate the political agenda.  To do this, the Series will bring together an exciting mix of prominent intellectuals and academics as well as public, private and NGO professionals to confer their insights into the climate change debate.  

Tom has a background in student activism and recently completed an MSc in Environment, Science & Society at UCL.

Richard Sexton

In memory of Richard Sexton, Co-Executive Director and Founder of COIN 2004-06.