We are thrilled with the success of our recent Envireau Knowledge event, From Source to Spirit: A Distillers Masterclass to a Climate Resilient Water Supply. This exclusive gathering brought together industry leaders, distillers, and water management experts to tackle the pressing issue of water security in the face of climate change. Participants engaged with cutting-edge insights, case studies, and solutions to safeguard their operations amidst growing water scarcity and complex regulations. The collaborative atmosphere, coupled with expert-led discussions, provided invaluable tools for securing a resilient future for the distilling and malting industries.

Did you miss out on #STS2024? Head over to our news item to discover more about the day's events, including key takeaways and discussions.

Looking to revisit presentation content from the Envireau Knowledge event? Click the link below...

Conference Programme

Dr Phil Ham

Managing Director & Principal Hydrogeologist, Envireau Water

Phil specialises in hydrogeological impact assessments and has a particular interest and expertise in the development, management, and regulation of independent water supplies. He leads groundwater supply and environmental monitoring projects for a variety of industries alongside brewing and distilling, including food and drink manufacturing, water bottling, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing.

Dr Lee Oliver

Head of Sustainability, The Woodland Trust

Lee is the head of sustainability for the Woodland Trust, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity. He is responsible for the Trust’s Sustainability Strategy, ensuring maintenance of the highest standards of sustainability practice in the Trust’s work to create native woodlands and restore ancient habitat. Lee works with key partners and sponsors to ensure they align with the same principles and standards.

Lee has multi-site water stewardship and governance experience; achieving the Alliance for Water Stewardship certification for Diageo’s 11 Spey malt distilleries and Cameronbridge grain distillery

Anna Graham

Head of Environment, Science & Innovation

Scotch Whisky Association 

Anna has worked for over two decades with the Scottish business community on a range of sustainability and policy topics, with a substantive period of her career spent on the design and delivery of Government and EU funded resource efficiency support programmes for SMEs.

In 2021, she joined the Scotch Whisky Association as Head of Environment, Science and Innovation where she leads on delivery of Association’s sustainability commitments around circular economy, water and land management. 

David Banks

Principal Hydrogeologist, Envireau Water

Dave has over 35 years of industry experience both in the UK and internationally. His experience covers the design of boreholes for groundwater supply, ground source heating, and geothermal energy development. As well as, water chemistry, where he provides advice on the mineral and biofouling of well screens.

Dave is the author/co-author of the textbooks “Water Wells and Boreholes” and “An Introduction to Thermogeology: Ground Source Heating and Cooling”, both in their 2nd editions and both published by Wiley.

Duncan Pirie

Environment Co-ordinator, Diageo

As Environment Co-ordinator for Diageo, Duncan provides environmental advice and support to Diageo’s Malt Distilling sites across Scotland, with a particular focus on Speyside operations, where he has managed to ‘blend’ his two passions of Environmental Management and Whisky.

Duncan has 6 previous years’ experience working as an Environment Protection Officer with SEPA in the Speyside and Grampian Region where he regulated various distilleries across the region.

Chris Woodhouse

Principal Hydrogeologist, Envireau Water

Chris joined Envireau Water in 2021. Chris manages the Scotland Office and has over 12 years' technical experience in the minerals and waste, food and drink, and water resources sector, with experience spanning the UK, New Zealand and Australia.

Chris supports clients with a wide range of projects involving the water environment including water supply development, assessing impacts of effluent discharge and landfilling, dewatering assessments, climate resilience, and flood risk management.

More recently, Chris has been working with distilling clients across Scotland with water supply and discharge projects related to site expansion, climate change resilience and regulatory reviews.  

Ronald Daalmans

Sustainability Director, Chivas Brothers

Ronald Daalmans is the Sustainability Director for Chivas Brothers Ltd, the Pernod Ricard business dedicated to Scotch whisky, based in Dumbarton.
He has been with the company for 12 years and has held various environmental roles over the last 25 years within the utility, regulatory, logistics and chemicals sectors.

Shona Symon

Senior Hydrogeologist, Envireau Water



Shona joined Envireau Water in 2021 and has over 4 years technical experience with a focus on water resource management, having worked across the UK, delivering private and public water supplies for a vast range of sectors including, quarrying, landfills and food & drink to name a few. 

Shona is passionate and experienced in water resource management, particularly in the development of groundwater supplies. She specialises in borehole design and specification, test-pumping, monitoring systems, and abstraction licensing across food and drink manufacturing, water bottling, and distilling sectors. This includes work supporting distilling clients on Speyside, Islay and the Highlands.

Archie Grant

Chemical Engineer, William Grant & Sons

Archie is a Chemical Engineer at William Grant & Sons, having joined in 2022. Currently working in the whisky sector, Archie has worked in the project engineering team and has been responsible for a wide variety of projects which have exposed him to all unit operations in the whisky production process. Some of the projects Archie has worked on include groundwater monitoring and new process water borehole projects, as well as various distillery expansion projects.