A Greenwich Green councillor has defended his career in the oil and gas industry — insisting his work over the past decade has been focused on the transition to renewable energy.

Lakshan Saldin joined the Green Party in January after resigning from the Labour Party last September, and is standing for his new party in the Charlton Hornfair ward in the election on May 7.

The Greens have committed to stopping new oil and gas projects if they get into power in Westminster, choosing to “invest properly” in the UK’s transition to renewable energy to become a zero-carbon society “as soon as possible”.

An engineer by trade, Saldin has worked on international energy and energy transition projects for decades. He is a director of two consultancy businesses, Knova Ltd and Agilis Services Ltd, which cater to clients in the energy sector.

While he said he had worked on oil and gas projects in the past, Saldin said the past 10 years of his career had been spent working to reduce the harm of those projects or in creating renewable energy schemes.

He said: “It’s not really an issue, to be honest. My background and history is in the oil and gas industry and it’s a sector in which I still work, but all of my work now is focused on precisely that transition away from hydrocarbons and towards net zero. It’s all around energy efficiency, demand reduction and low carbon technology.”

Lakshan Saldin and Tamasin Rhymes
Saldin joined Tamasin Rhymes as Greenwich’s second Green councillor in January. Image: Hannah Jenkinson

Saldin said that any work he did on oil and gas projects now was to increase their lifespans to prevent new fossil fuel operations from starting up. 

“Oil and gas, hydrocarbons, coal and other dirty sources as well, they currently make up 75 per cent of the UK’s energy mix,” he said. 

“It’s not something we can just switch off overnight. So it’s all about minimisation and managing that transition away from it.”

Some of Saldin’s projects are listed on the website of Hanscomb Intercontinental, an advisory firm he has worked for since 2021 that describes him as a “globally recognised oil and gas industry expert advisor with experience covering all aspects and phases of engineering development and project management”.

Saldin said many of the projects listed on the website – including two in Nigeria – had taken place several years ago and he had asked the company to update his profile. 

One of the Nigerian projects was to avoid water discharging from an oilfield tank farm into an “area of environmental sensitivity”, Saldin said. The other was stopping a leak at a 50-year-old facility, where Saldin said he worked to turn waste gas from the project into a domestic supply for nearby residents, preventing them from burning coal and wood.

Saldin said he felt his work in the oil and gas industry aligned with his Green membership as he was focused on the move towards renewable energy.

He said he left the Labour Party by “mutual agreement” as he was not willing to support stances the party had taken nationally, including its stances on trans people, its initial opposition to removing the two-child benefit cap, changes to personal independence payments and his vocal support of Palestine.

Feeling ‘really, really, really good’ about Greens

Saldin said he joined the Greens four months later because of the actions of home secretary Shabana Mahmood, and the Government’s decision to extend the indefinite leave to remain status route from five to 10 years. He described her policies as a “move towards Reform’s race-baiting rhetoric”.

He added: “Forget Labour not being the party I joined, it wasn’t even the party that I had left in September anymore. That was the final push because the Greens are actually talking about my progressive values.”

Saldin said he felt “really, really, really good” about how the Greens would do in the council election next month.

He described Labour’s recent decision to limit public questioning at council meetings as “anti-democratic” and “completely out of order”. He said public questions had increased because of decisions such as closing three of its adventure play centres.

Saldin added: “The unpopularity of the decision has brought a whole load of traditionally non-political people to ask questions. We’re here to fight attempts to stop local democracy.”

Cameron Blackshaw is the Local Democracy Reporter for Greenwich and Bexley. The Greenwich Wire is a partner in the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which is a BBC-funded initiative to ensure councils are covered properly in local media. 

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