Career

Ruth Barden is the director of environmental strategy at Wessex Water leading on catchment based approaches, environmental planning, biodiversity and delivery of the Water Framework Directive, including the Chemical Investigations Programmes.

She has worked at Wessex Water for more than 10 years, always in an environmental capacity but ranging from undertaking environmental impact assessments to liaison on permitting. A key part of her role is delivering an ambitious environmental investigation programme and identifying novel technologies and approaches to achieve environmental improvements at an acceptable cost to customers.