WRAP appoints climate change lead

• Appointment cements WRAP’s growing focus on climate change and Net Zero, following Courtauld 2030’s focus on reducing emissions.

Karen Fisher, Special Advisor at WRAP, has been appointed to a pivotal new role as the organisation’s Head of Climate Action Strategy.

Working with WRAP’s CEO Marcus Gover, Karen will drive forward work on climate action across all its UK and international programmes to ensure ‘Net Zero’ ambitions are clearly aligned. The role will develop new sustainability interventions for the range of supply chains the organisation’s business programmes influence, as well as forging a global community to support collaborative work on climate action.

Karen has worked in the field of food systems sustainability for nearly twenty years, eight of which have been at WRAP. Her most recent work has led important new initiatives with the food & drink sector focused on the challenges of measuring and reducing supply chain GHG (scope 3) emissions. Karen has been instrumental in driving forward WRAP’s programmes including Meat in a Net Zero world and the Courtauld Water Ambition.

Karen Fisher, Head of Climate Action Strategy, said “I am delighted to take on this new challenge. This is a hugely important year not just for the UK but for every country on Earth, and COP26 is only weeks away. Humanity has a huge task ahead to combat the worst impacts of climate change and I see this role helping to bring WRAP’s work clearly in line with crucial Climate Action. I see this as a moment to refresh and refocus our outlook globally and use WRAP’s convening power to maximum effect to help drive change at the forefront of action on climate change.”

Karen led WRAP’s work in launching Meat in a Net Zero world in June 2020, after convening more than 50 stakeholders across the meat production and supply chain. These companies are now collaborating to make the UK meat industry one of the most sustainable in the world, and WRAP will publish the first progress report this week. Its work on water stewardship was also spearheaded by Karen and is focused on addressing water stress in food supply chains. WRAP will launch a new Roadmap towards Water Security for Food & Drink for the UK later this year.

The appointment of Karen Fisher follows changes to one of the organisation’s central programmes and the relaunch of the Courtauld Commitment 2030 in June, with a renewed focus on GHG reductions and tackling water stress – which is imperative for climate adaptation. With food consumed in the UK topping 150Mt CO₂e, equivalent to c.30% of the UK’s territorial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, WRAP remodelled this programme to include a new target for industry of a 50% absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions associated with food and drink consumed in the UK by 2030.

The organisation’s other exemplar programmes – the UK Plastics Pact and Textiles 2030 – share similar ambitions to curtail GHG emissions.

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