12 July 2022
We recently welcomed Marie Cookson as our new Safety, Health, Environment and Quality Manager (SHEQ Manager) at Adapt Biogas. As a new starter, we thought we would find out a little more about her……
Background
Marie has always had an interest in the environment which started way before her degree in Environmental Management that she took at Manchester Metropolitan University. This was a new degree to the university at the time and offered opportunities to learn more about corporate and social environments within the industry and the roles of sustainability and the environment which she found particularly of interest.
Since qualifying Marie has had varied work roles with Natural England and Anglian Water, helping to build up her skills on sustainability at work and championing, of course, the vital role good health and safety practice means for businesses.
As a Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner, we at Adapt Biogas, are confident her knowledge, experience and professionalism will have a huge impact on our sites both here at HQ at Murrow and at Evercreech in Shepton Mallet.
On speaking with Marie, she said:
“I’ve seen the EHS profession undergo a significant transformation in the past 10 years, moving away from a focus on compliance and costs to management systems that provide for continuous improvement and focus on risk reduction…..and most importantly it’s also about building a culture that engages the entire workforce in improving workplace Health and Safety.”
Marie’s future
Joining Adapt, Marie very much hopes to be a part of the exciting future of the business and embed the right behaviours into the business including developing people management skills and developing an interest in the renewable energy business.
She said: “I want Adapt to be the leaders in Health and Safety in the Anaerobic Digestion field and I want us to get ‘things right first time and every time.”
With high numbers and rates of fatal injury, agriculture is one of the riskiest industry sectors, with farming accident stories hitting the headlines more often than anyone would like. Marie hopes that making an impact on the farm side of the business will be welcomed too.
Marie is also a great believer in well-being in the workplace and that a ‘happy place of work’ helps to deliver employee satisfaction, leads to less sickness absence and allows for a lot more productivity for all.
This will be part of Marie’s role to develop, and she is excited at the prospects of the positive journey she has ahead with the business.
Already in her short time at Adapt, she has been looking into adding beehives and a rewilding area to the site to help manage biodiversity on the farm and to continue her growing knowledge of beekeeping, something she is already doing on her own allotment – so we could be seeing Murrow honey in the future!
A warm welcome to Marie, we hope she will enjoy her role, and we will be reporting back on her progress when we can!
Get in touch
For any health and safety information you would like to know about any of our sites, please contact lets.adapt@adaptbiogas.com or call Marie on 01945 402023 and to meet the other members of our team please click here.
