Head of olive oil technology and environment department, International Olive Council · Lifetime Civil Servant
CV:
Agricultural Engineer specializing in Agri-food Economics, Policy and Sociology from ETSIAM (Higher Technical School of Agricultural Engineering) at the University of Córdoba. He is the Head of the Olive Oil and Environment Department at the International Olive Council (IOC).
His main areas of interest include, among others, the interaction between olive groves and climate change, as well as the integration of the international network of olive germplasm banks.
In 2008, he led the first study conducted in Spain on the carbon footprint of the food industry in accordance with international standards (PAS 2050). Since then, he has participated in more than one hundred studies and projects related to carbon footprinting, carbon balances, life cycle assessment, sustainability, and climate change for public and private entities in the agri-food sector, particularly in olive oil.
He coordinated the pilot working group for the development of a method to determine the environmental footprint of olive oil within the framework of the European Commission’s DGENV (Directorate-General for Ecological Transition) initiative. He also coordinated the work of the IOC expert group on Carbon Balance in Olive Oil as an external consultant between 2012 and 2018, which was presented at COP16 in Marrakech.
For the seven years prior to joining the IOC, he was a member of the management team of a large family-owned agribusiness group operating in the regions of Andalusia (Spain) and Alentejo (Portugal). The group’s main focus was olive oil and table olives.
Presentation title:
The IOC Vision: A Sustainable Future for the Global Olive Sector