Brian D Clark is a specialist in environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) with fifty years' experience in EIA and SEA, urban and rural planning and environmental management in Scotland, the UK, Europe and several developing countries. Initial research at Glasgow University was on regional development policy and mobility of industry in the UK and he was joint coordinator of the first study of urban deprivation in Scotland based on the inner suburbs of Glasgow. This was followed by an appointment at Durham University were he conducted research on urban and regional planning in Iran, Iraq and the Gulf States. He moved to Aberdeen University in 1971 to direct the MSc in Rural and Regional Resources Planning which later became the MSc in Sustainable Rural Development. He established the Centre for Environmental Management and Planning (CEMP), which won national and international awards for consultancy, research and training in EIA, SEA, Sustainability and Environmental Management. In 1994 he was awarded a Personal Chair in Environmental Management and Planning.
He has acted as an advisor and consultant on EIA, planning and environmental issues to the House of Lords, UK governments, UNEP, WHO, EU, UNECE and the World Bank. He was honoured in 1987 by being made a founder member of UNEP's Global 500 Award for his services towards environmental management and awarded an MBE in 2006. He was a Board Member of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), and Chairman of the North Region Board and the Planning & Finance Committee of SEPA from 2000-2008 and a Commissioner of the Scottish Government Local Boundary Commission. He has served on the UK government and Devolved Administrations Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) from 2003 to the present. He was a founder member of the Institute of Environmental Assessment (IEA), now the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA), and chaired its Technical Committee. He was a Governor of the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute from 2004 and a Board Member of Macaulay Scientific Consulting. until the establishment of the James Hutton Institute in 2011 when he became a Board member and Chair of the Advisory Committee on Science.until 2017. His outside interests are developing his croquet skills, putting croquet on the map in the North East of Scotland, supporting Aberdeen football club and buying obscure plants in the hope that one day they will get planted!
