Andrew Paten

From Bristol, UL, Mr Paten is the Co-founder of UKNAR CIC: (UK National Asbestos Register Community Interest Company) – a non-profit social enterprise. That was established in early 2020. They aim to prevent thousands of avoidable asbestos exposures: by building a national asbestos database, using today’s SMART technology and working collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders. Mr Paten is also the Co-founder and former CEO and Chair of the Metro Safety Group. Established since 30 years, Metro Safety has been a leading national provider of fire safety compliance services to UK property professionals. It has incorporated asbestos consultancy as part of an overall fire and health & safety compliance services offering since 2011. During ASBESTONOMY Mr. Paten will speak of “How today’s SMART QR technology and a National Asbestos Database could prevent thousands of asbestos exposures”, what it will take to transform the culture of widespread ignorance and indifference – some of the key obstacles and challenges and how they might be overcome.

Andrew believes that:

One: “you can only achieve worthwhile change working collaboratively with others not by telling them what they must do.”

Two: in order to find the energy required to change, most people do need to feel some pain

Three: the best chance for any solution to be adopted is

o to make it as simple as possible to implement

o to demonstrate that it is commercially compatible with current economic circumstances and aligned with future ambitions

Mr. Patens has accepted to speak at ASBESTONOMY for two principal reasons:

– if UKNAR is to achieve its social mission it will need as much publicity and support from as many stakeholders in the asbestos world as possible

– despite obvious international differences we believe the principles and concepts behind UKNAR can and should be applied globally and we want to learn from others too