David Slater

Background

About David Slater

PROFILE David Slater is an accomplished leader with over five decades of experience across academia, public service, and industry. Renowned for his contributions to risk consultancy, environmental protection, regulatory frameworks, and sustainable energy, he has been pivotal in influencing policies and developing innovative solutions to global challenges After teaching Chemical engineering at Imperial, David moved into the Environmental and Major Hazards Consultancy sector, following the Flixborough Disaster. He has since had an ongoing involvement in risk and incident investigation and pioneered its application worldwide (UK, US, Australia, Far East). His teams involving Trevor Kletz’s original ICI key people established HAZOP as a staple tool of US process safety. Subsequently they wrote the first comprehensive guidebooks on Risk Management Methodologies for the US CCPS, AIChE. David’s teams produced the first acceptable submission of the then novel Norwegian sector “safety cases” and subsequently worked on most of the major North Sea developments – Sleipner, Hemdal, Ekofisk, Gullfaks, Statfjord,(the Hutton TLP) and Australian and Saudi Arabian oil and gas operations. His teams developed the formal risk assessment methodologies for planning under the Dutch “External safety” Regulations. and independent assessments of incidents, such as Bhopal and reviewed the safety of Swiss Air Traffic Management after Uberlingen. He is an Honorary Professor in the School of Engineering at Cardiff, where he is involved in risk and safety: particularly the newer approaches in Human and Organisational Performance (SAFETY II),with a close association with Erik Hollnagel on the formal development of the new FRAM and Resilience approaches. He was Chief Inspector of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution, the environmental Regulator for the UK. and then the Environment Agency. In the 5 years 1991-6, David’s teams cut the UK Pollution Inventory by 50%. He was seconded to the EU, to help implement the Integrated Pollution Control and REACH Directives. He founded the European network of Regulators – IMPEL and chaired the UK Government's radioactive waste organisation (NIREX CLG). He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath for services to the Environment.