Committee
The Committee consists of nine members who look after the day-to-day affairs of LCANZ. These are
Dr Barbara Nebel (President)
Barbara’s passion is to enable organisations to succeed sustainably. As CEO of thinkstep-anz she often describes her job as a translator. Translating sustainability into traditional business language. Together with her team, she delivers a full range of sustainability services from strategy and materiality assessments through to detailed Life Cycle Assessments and Cradle to Cradle® projects. Barbara has worked with organisations in New Zealand, Australia, Asia and Europe, effectively linking sustainability with business value.
As the founder of LCANZ, she initiated the Australasian EPD Programme. She is a member of the International EPD system and on the Steering Group for the Climate Leaders Coalition. Barbara has chaired the New Zealand working group for the development of ISO standards for Carbon Footprinting, is a Certified LCA Practitioner, and an associate editor for the International Journal of LCA.
Sateesh Kumar Pisini (Secretary)
E: S.Pisini@massey.ac.nz; M: +64 – 223745494
Sateesh Pisini, a seasoned Civil Engineering Professional and Chartered Engineer with 14 years of experience in industry and academia, excels in technical expertise, leadership, and project management consultancy. His roles span a diverse range, including comprehensive review and preparation of geotechnical reports for railway siding projects. Sateesh has a proven track record securing external research grants, particularly for Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Actively engaged in publishing and networking, he is committed to promoting sustainability and bolstering civil infrastructure resilience in the face of climate challenges. His research focuses on developing a multicriteria sustainability assessment framework for foundation design, ground improvement, and sustainable construction materials in civil/geotechnical engineering. He applies a sustainability index during the design stage of large infrastructure civil construction projects to identify the most environmentally friendly approach using life cycle assessment. Sateesh, an ERASMUS+ recipient and keynote speaker, is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. He serves on technical advisory committees for international conferences and is affiliated with professional engineering bodies. Currently a Research Scholar in Construction Management at Massey University, Auckland, his focus lies in ‘Embodied Carbon and Life Cycle Emissions in Buildings through Circular Strategies’.
John McArthur (Treasurer & Membership)
Joanne Duncan (Assistant Secretary)
Joanne graduated in 2018 with a Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Management at Massey University. Prior to post graduate study she worked in accountancy in the business sector. The postgraduate study focused on life cycle assessment methodology, zero waste, product stewardship and the circular economy. She is passionate about sustainability in business. Joanne considers life cycle thinking and methodology provide an important insight and base to promote product stewardship. She is particularly interested in finding the types of incentives which will encourage businesses and consumers to take responsibility for environmental impacts over product life cycles. She thinks education would be a good place to start. She is a member of wasteMINZ and the Zero Waste Network.
Emily Townsend
Emily is passionate about using data to help companies improve their sustainability performance. For over a decade she has worked in sustainability and continuous improvement roles with companies in Australia, New Zealand and the UK to implement robust reporting and analysis systems and develop pathways and strategies to reduce impacts while providing tangible business value.
Emily joined the thinkstep-anz team as a Sustainability Engineer in early 2018, following experience with both product and corporate sustainability in the Infrastructure and Construction Materials sector. In her previous role as Sustainability Programme Manager at Downer New Zealand, her main focus was developing and implementing an Energy Efficiency Programme. Prior to this, Emily was Sustainability Advisor at Tarmac Ltd, in the UK, where she developed and maintained Tarmac’s Carbon Footprint Calculator, providing site- and product-specific carbon footprints across Tarmac’s product range to a broad range of clients and infrastructure projects.
In her role with thinkstep-anz, Emily has worked on product and corporate sustainability projects for a range of clients as well as heading up internal projects. Emily is thinkstep-anz’s Services Director, helping join the dots across projects and share best practice.
Shreyasi Majumdar
With a bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences, Shreyasi has worked as a journalist, writer, proof-reader, and editor in India and Singapore. She recently completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Management from Massey University. During the course of her programme, she studied the foundational as well as the advanced Environmental Life Cycle Assessment papers, which got her keenly interested in Life Cycle Thinking as a major paradigm shift in environmental impact studies and sustainable development programmes. She is now enrolled as a doctoral candidate studying Life Cycle-based sustainability indicators and programme implementations in the New Zealand horticultural sector, and hopes to continue working to advance Life Cycle Thinking in New Zealand.
Kelly McClean
Kelly has a strong interest in systems design, circular economy strategies, bio-based materials and sustainable design practice. She is an experienced innovation and sustainability project manager and consultant who has worked on a range of initiatives in the NZ textiles, agriculture, FMCG and packaging sectors. Projects have included strategic change implementation, life cycle assessment studies and methodology development, Environmental Product Declarations, quality assurance and tech development. She has a Bachelor of Design (1st class Hons), majoring in textiles and in 2014 completed a Masters of Design as a Callaghan Innovation Fellow, from Massey University’s College of Creative Arts. Kelly became an LCANZ member during study towards an LCA and Footprinting Methods paper and contributes to the LCANZ committee from an industry perspective.
Ferran de Miguel Mercader
Ferran is the Sustainability Manager at Fletcher Building, with Environmental Product Declarations a focus of his role. He joined Fletcher Building corporate office at the end of 2019, after one year looking after sustainability at Laminex New Zealand. Previously, he worked as a scientist at Scion developing technology for the production of biofuels, and at TNO (Netherlands) on CO2 capture and storage. He represented New Zealand at the International Energy Agency – Bioenergy, on the topic of Direct Thermochemical Liquefaction of biomass. He holds an MSc (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain) and a PhD (Universiteit Twente, Netherlands) both in Chemical Engineering.
Rahul Chopra
Rahul is a strategy practitioner, systems thinker, and values-based leader with a passion to help organisations thrive while caring for our communities and environment.
He is the founder editor of the New Zealand Sustainability and Policy Leader’s Forum (NZSPLF) and currently also leads the Sustainability function at AVL, a SaaS.
He currently holds governance positions with the Department of Conservation (DOC); the Life Cycle Association of New Zealand (LCANZ); and Carbon and Energy Professionals (CEP) New Zealand.
Previously, he was a board member of the Kaipatiki Pest Free Society and the 2035 Oceania Summit.
Rahul holds a master’s in public policy and governance and is a certified Project Manager and GRI Professional.
The Committee is elected at every second Annual General Meeting from and by the members of the Association.