Irene holds a Bsc 2:1 Honours Degree in Social Science with Geography.

Irene previously worked for British Petroleum for fourteen years. Six of those years were spent working on Corporate Social Responsibility, as Community Relations and Programmes Adviser for BP’s oil operations in Angola, Nigeria and Mozambique. Irene has spent long periods of time working in Africa, particularly Angola and Nigeria. She has been involved with social impact assessments and social audits. Irene has worked extensively with NGOs, Intergovernmental Organisations and various Government bodies, holding a number of stakeholder workshops on improving social investment and corporate social responsibility.

Irene’s special interest is in human rights and conflict resolution in relation to the impacts of mining upon host communities. She would like to work again in Africa sometime in the future.

She has two children and enjoys travelling with them.

Irene joined the IC team in February 2002 and is coordinating the energy issue strand.

Email: igerlach@earthsummit2002.org