Shane Colgan
Shane has worked on waste and circular economy issues for over 20 years.
Working with the Environmental Protection Agency, he was the manager of the National Waste Prevention Programme (NWPP) which included several national projects including Green Business, Smart Farming, and the national Stop Food Waste programme. Later, Shane oversaw the evolution of the NWPP into the national Circular Economy Programme, which included working with the Rediscovery Centre and the CIRCULEIRE initiative.
Shane has also worked with the European Environment Agency – with a focus on circular economy and waste issues. In this role, he was the lead author of the report Accelerating the Circular Transition in Europe which presents assessment of current situation and highlights ways to accelerate progress. He developed the Circularity Metrics Lab, using national statistics and novel dataflows to monitor progress towards circularity. Other tasks included working with European Commission on developing national reuse reporting protocols and conducting ‘early warning’ assessments for Member States on waste targets.
In his current role, he is supporting the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media on sustainability issues. Recent key works includes co-authoring Ireland’s new national tourism policy and introducing sustainability criteria to sports infrastructure funding. He is also the co-chair of EU expert group to stimulate the green transition of the cultural and creative sectors.
