James Wood is Business Development Manager for Marlowe Environmental Services (MES), specialising in the chemicals used in MES’ water treatment services. Charged with developing the client base across power generation, construction, food & beverage, chemical processing and other commercial sectors, James joined the company in November 2024 following many years’ experience in sales and leadership roles, the majority of which have been in the mechanical engineering and water treatment space.
James’ main areas of expertise:
- Chemical treatments: James has an in-depth understanding of all types of chemical treatments and is focussed on helping his clients find the most effective, sustainable and low polluting solutions.
- Water system engineering: James is highly knowledgeable about industrial water systems, including low and high pressure boiler systems, closed-circuit HVAC and effluent treatment systems.
- Business development and sales: James has a proven track-record in related leadership roles, responsible for high revenue growth and record performances.
Apart from a brief hiatus as Sales Director for Wolseley UK plus a stint in a family business, James has lived and breathed chemical water treatment for much of his career with notable positions at GE Power and Veolia. He studied a degree in chemistry and outside of MES, is the Vice Secretary for the British and Irish Institute for Power, Water & Steam.
“My job is ultimately to sell chemicals and promote the full service that MES offers. While chemicals are my area of responsibility, our approach is always solutions based; we want to create long term change and that usually requires more than simply swapping one chemical out for another. Building relationships with clients is the focus and that means working with them to provide more than just individual products and services. I have always been committed to helping customers find the best options for their particular challenges. James’ focus on value delivery has helped his customers save £530k in water and effluent costs, while also reducing energy use and associated CO₂ emissions.
Every type of water-based industrial plant has different requirements, from anti-scalent and effluent treatment plans, to niche products, like Polyamines which are used by chemical processing industries. Cooling systems, which make up a large proportion of the closed-systems that we work on, are moving towards non-phosphate solutions such as non-oxidising biocides, avoiding the sludge that can occur using traditional phosphate and nitrate products – bad for efficiency, and also the environment if they get into waterways.
For every project there’s five basic principles: health & safety, environment, asset protection, integrity, and availability. Improved operational certainty and energy efficiency ultimately lead to savings, and we work on the principle of returning the annual investment of the project through these savings – be they cost, time or a bit of both.
Overall, sustainability has become increasingly important. Just two years ago, our main concern was environmental health & safety, and while this is of course still high up the agenda, carbon reduction, energy and water saving are priorities. This approach also leads to better performing plant, with improved operational certainty.
I’m proud that our services contribute to net zero; we work on heat networks, with heat pumps and other renewables. Growth areas for the future include energy from waste thanks to relaxed planning laws and biogas – some local authorities are already providing separate food waste bins for this purpose. Water is key to almost all associated systems, be that as part of the generation of energy itself, or the HVAC delivering heating and cooling to end users. It’s an exciting time to be part of this sector, with MES leading the charge.”