Geoff Beattie

Geoff Beattie is the head of global practices and the leader of the Global Energy Practice for the PR firm, Cohn & Wolfe. He is a consultant to the European Climate Foundation and an unnamed oil and gas company.

Background
A biographical note states that "as head of the Energy Practice, Geoff’s mission is to lead a team of consultants with real expertise in all energy sectors: oil & gas, coal, utilities & power, nuclear, renewables & alternative fuels. Geoff is currently a strategic communications adviser to one of the world’s leading oil and gas companies."

The biographical note states that he was "previously a senior consultant to the leadership team at Shell Renewables, Hydrogen & CO2. He is also an adviser to the energy team at WS Atkins plc, the UK’s largest engineering consultancy. Geoff joined C&W in January 2007 as Managing Director of the London office. Before that, he ran the London office of Pleon, Europe’s biggest communications agency, and part of the BBDO group. Geoff started in PR a decade ago as a partner in a start-up, HBL Media, which quickly grew to a PR Week Top 100 agency, on the back of blue chip clients like Nokia, London Stock Exchange and the Financial Services Authority. Before that, Geoff worked in broadcasting for a number of years, and was senior producer at GMTV, the UK’s most popular morning show. He trained as a journalist on newspapers in the UK."

Promoting Carbon Capture and Storage
In 2009 Beattie was listed as "masterclass leader" for a workshop aimed at people interested in promoting Carbon Capture and Storage technology, an experimental technology for burying carbon dioxide from coal-fired power stations underground. The promotional brochure for the seminar stated that "if CCS can win sufficient support in government, industry, science and the wider public, it could become one of the most effective weapons in the ongoing battle against climate change. Without it, achieving the European targets of a 20% cut in Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2020 will be much more difficult. And yet European society is very far from embracing CCS as a solution. Governments across the EU are wavering in their support; parts of the science and engineering communities are sceptical; NGOs and environment groups are often openly hostile; and the general public remains largely ignorant of the benefits (and risks) of capturing and sequestering CO2. For anyone who wishes to promote CCS – in government, industry or society at large – communications has a vital role to play. Without effective communications strategies, CCS will not become a widely adopted solution for combating global warming. This workshop will lay out the key questions for all forms of stakeholder communications and how they might best be addressed. There will also be training on how CCS messages can be delivered effectively by spokespeople."

Clients

 * European Climate Foundation

Contact Details

 * Blog: http://www.cohnwolfe.com/en/wolfetracking (Beattie occasionally post blogs at Cohn & Wolfe's group blog, Wolfe Tracking.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Carbon Capture and Storage

External articles

 * "Geoff Beattie", LinkedIn, accessed April 2009.