Tim Crozier-Cole and Cathy Hough

Save energy 12th of March 2008

Save Energy

Tim Crozier-Cole and Cathy Hough are a partnership with no shortage of energy. Their laughter is infectious and their spirits are irrepressible. Maybe this is attributable to the way they spend their work lives. At the office, the couple spend their time saving a different type of energy. The stuff that usually comes down wires. Tim and Cathy both work for Energy for Sustainable Development, a consultancy which advises businesses, architects, property developers, community groups and governments how to save energy and therefore reduce their environmental impact. They’ve worked for the company where they met for eight years or so, during which time it has grown from 25 people in a “barn in Wiltshire” to about 200 people worldwide.

Tim, who trained as an engineer, works with property developers, helping them to make crucial energy saving decisions, early on in the design of their projects. Cathy is working with non-governmental organisations, business and government to try and stimulate energy saving measures in existing housing stock in the UK. With climate change looking increasingly threatening, their work is in big demand. Growing interest in a low-carbon future has kept their jobs stimulating and challenging.

Like any couple who work together they have to be careful not to let work take over their home life. A bit of seepage is inevitable though. There’s a discernibly high awareness of energy use around their house and Tim even admits to having calculated the carbon budget of the home births of their two daughters. Their young children are the main consumers of this couple’s energy right now, so it’s even more impressive that they are able to contribute to conserving our planet’s limited resources through their work lives. These two are definitely an electric combination.