About

South West London Environment Network (SWLEN) is a charity dedicated to helping people and organisations protect and enhance the environment. We work in the London Boroughs of Richmond upon Thames, Kingston upon Thames and Hounslow. Our work focuses on preserving and protecting green spaces and biodiversity, promoting sustainability and community development and supporting environmental groups achieve their goals.

SWLEN also chairs and acts as the secretariat of the Richmond Biodiversity Partnership.

Vision & Values

SWLEN exists to build active and engaged communities who protect and enhance our local environment. Our core values are:

• Local empowerment – we passionately believe the best way to protect and enhance the environment is through empowering local people to take an interest, become involved and to take action themselves.

• Collaboration and partnership – we know that by working together we achieve more, and in sharing best practices we are strong together. This approach brings wider benefits to the community, charitable organisations and local authorities.

• Environmental protection and enhancement– we exist to ensure South West London maintains a thriving and sustainable environment.

History & Governance

SWLEN is a registered charity (no. 1140872) and registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee (no. 7469024). SWLEN began as the Richmond Environment Network (REN) in August 2004, set up by three local environmental organisations: Environment Trust, Thames Landscape Strategy and Richmond office of The Conservations Volunteers.

We were established as the charity SWLEN in April 2011, and continue to work closely with our founding partners. In 2015 we established a wholly owned social enterprise Community Current Ltd to work on issues outside SWLEN’s charitable objects.

SWLEN is governed by a board of trustees, and is managed by Chief Executive Colin Cooper.

Our financial information can be found on the Charity Commission’s website with our most recent annual accounts here:

• SWLEN Accounts 2016-2017

Trustees

Simon Martin

Chair of Trustees

Simon is Resident Involvement Manager at Paragon Community Housing Group, with over 30 years’ dedicated to resident and community involvement. Simon has been a trustee for 4 years.

Emma Ciechan

Treasurer

Emma is a Director of Planning & Performance Management at DS Smith Plc and was previously Group Financial Controller at Guardian Media Group plc.

Suzy Greenwood

Trustee

Suzy is a communications specialist, focussed on renewable energy at global integrated communications agency Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Julie Hitchcock

Trustee

Former Deputy Director, Department of Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs.

Stuart Oliver

Trustee

Stuart joined St Mary's in 1992 having worked previously as a journalist, visiting lecturer and Open University tutor. Stuart is the Programme Director for BSc Geography. Stuart has also published several books about the River Thames.

Henry Unwin

Trustee

Henry is CSR Manager for Nando's and before this worked for Bioregional. One of his projects was to create a CSR strategy for Nando's.

Staff

Colin Cooper

Chief Executive

Colin has a thirteen year track record of managing non-profit organisations and an MA in Charity Management. Colin also has a background in business.

Vicky Phillips

Business Manager

Vicky is a legal advisor and project manager specialising in legal and environmental issues.

Diana Cano

Communications Officer

Diana started volunteering with SWLEN in June 2016 and became our Communications Office in February 2017. Diana produces our newsletters, websites and social media content.

Clive Messenger

Energy Team Manager

Chas Warlow

Sustainability Projects Officer

Chas has over seen our energy champions works for the last 7 years. Chas has an Msc in Sustainability

Volunteers

Ana Meyer

Biodiversity Administrator

Jeanine Cazabon

IT Strategy Volunteer

Daija Angeli

Richmond Biodiversity Partnership

Paula Cole

Marketing

Coming from a background in marketing Paula is helping the charity develop marketing materials for our new crowdfund platform and encouraging donations and new projects.

Richard Curtis

Business Development Volunteer

Coming from a background in business development Richard is helping the charity develop relationships with businesses in the area in relation to our new crowdfund platform and encourage charitable giving.

Interns

Rosie Rothwell

Rosie is a student of Theology and Religious Studies at St Mary’s University. She joined SWLEN as an intern in late 2017 and is actively helping us to update and modernise our HR system.

Funding/Donations

The charity secures funding to deliver its aims. The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames’ Parks and Open Spaces Department funds most of our support work to friends of parks groups in this Borough and the London Borough of Hounslow’s Parks Department funds us to organise the Hounslow Friends of Parks Group Forum.

             

We also, when opportunities arise, bid for contract work within our areas of expertise. Any surpluses from this work is put back into the charity to deliver more charitable work. We have also established a trading arm of the charity, Community Current, which allows us to bid for, or undertake, work that doesn’t fall within our charitable objectives, but within the competencies of the charity’s staff and volunteer team.