James Lewis, Director of Intercoastal Consulting, is a certified practicing civil engineer with over 15 years of experience specialising in coastal engineering throughout Australasia and across the Pacific. He has a broad knowledge of coastal protection design, integrated coastal management and surf amenity. James’s skills extend outside the office where he has led large-scale metocean deployments, analysing the data captured in the field to calibrate numerical models used to inform coastal design.
He has focussed the last 10 years of his career on working in Small Island Developing States (SIDs) in climate change adaptation, concerned primarily with developing climate-resilient coastal protection. James aspires to see the design phase through to implementation; having supported procurement, and contracting and undertaken construction supervision on large projects in remote locations. He aims to provide value and support through the complete project lifecycle including the social, financial and institutional aspects of these projects, endeavoring to understand the administrative, governmental and funding mechanisms specific to each country and community and their relation to the delivery of a successful project.
Using his knowledge of coastal engineering, the ocean and the environment, James’ primary endeavor is to assist coastal communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
My interest in the environment started as I worked as a climatologist in the Apia Observatory, Samoa, where I learnt a lot about the close links between the weather/climate and other components of the environment including humans. I later took an academic career with the National Uni of Samoa (participate in the environment issue) in its inception years until the end of 1999.
Moving to Australia in 2000 allowed me to take an administration pathway with the University of NSW until 2006 and a theology degree. This helped developed a more complete toolkit to deal with the environment issue. Returning to Samoa this decade gave me an opening to connect in a more meaningful way with communities which are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Currently I'm enjoying this work immensely with the OLSSI.
Member of the Chartered Chemist, Royal Society of Chemistry
University of Leeds Research Fellow - Conducted research into the chemistry of atmospheric pollution resulting from power generation through the use of electron accelerators and complex reaction modelling
Principal Consultant for Entec UK Ltd, Northwick, Cheshire, UK
Director for Environmental Intelligence Limited, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Countries of Work Experience: Australia and United Kingdom
Corporate strategy: Emission reduction target for global airline
Enhancing assurance capability: New reporting method for open cut coal mining
Financial risk management: Carbon trading risks and opportunities
Climate change impacts: Risk to food security in Australia for a large food company
Climate adaptation strategy for the Nottinghamshire County Council
Analysis of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme in its first year of operation
Carbon mitigation strategy for the UK Water Utility Sector
Design and development of the EU ETS New Entrant Reserve
Design and operation of a simulation of an emission trading market that allowed 14 UK companies to practice their trading strategies in advance of the UK ETS in 2002