Karolina Brabcová (moderator)

Karolina Brabcová works as an Executive Committee member of Arnika, a Czech-based NGO working on toxics and waste. She works as an expert on toxic chemicals in consumer products while following EU chemicals legislation. She coordinates product testing in the Czech Republic and across Europe and has led international campaigns, including consumer product sampling projects on PFAS in outdoor clothing and food packaging, as well as bisphenols in textiles and electronics. She also initiated the Ban PFAS Manifesto, signed by over 130 organisations from around the globe.

Heidrun Fammler (moderator)

Heidrun Fammler is the founder and managing director of the Baltic Environmental Forum (BEF), which she established in 1995 in the Baltic States and expanded to Hamburg in 2003. With over 35 years of experience in environmental protection, she has worked on chemicals, circular economy and environmental police, and played a key role in supporting the implementation of European environmental policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Today, the BEF Group brings together more than 50 experts working on international projects to strengthen environmental protection. 

Susana Fonseca

Susana Fonseca is Vice President of the Portuguese NGO ZERO  – Association for the Sustainability of the Earth System. She works on wellbeing economy, circular economy (reduction, reuse, repair) and chemical substances, and coordinates European projects such as LIFE AskREACH and LIFE ChemBee. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the energy cooperative Coopérnico. She holds a PhD in Sociology from ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa – and was a researcher on Environmental Sociology for two decades.

Emese Gulyás PhD

Emese Gulyás is an expert on consumer behaviour and sustainable consumption. She is the founder and a board member of the Hungarian organisation Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete (TVE, Association of Conscious Consumers) since 2001. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Corvinus University and an MA in Sociology and Economics from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration (later Corvinus University). She is a certified EFPA ESG Advisor.

Maria Hammarling

Maria Hammarling works at Sveriges Konsumenter as a project manager, focusing on sustainable consumption and chemical safety. She leads the organisation’s involvement in EU projects such as LIFE ChemBEEs, which raises awareness about harmful substances in households, and Baltiplast, aimed at reducing single-use plastic waste in the Baltic Sea region. Previously, she coordinated the Swedish participation in LIFE AskREACH, making EU chemical legislation more accessible for consumers and companies. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Human Geography from Lund University.

Martin Hojsík

Martin Hojsík has served as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019 and as its Vice President since 2023, working to avert the climate threat, protect biodiversity and animals, regulate hazardous chemicals, and promote safe and wholesome food. Martin Hojsík has been actively involved in nature and animal protection for over 25 years. He is an active MEP in two committees – ENVI (Environment, Climate and Food Safety) and HOUS Committee (Special Committee on the Housing Crisis). He acts as a substitute in two other committees – ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) and EMPL (Employment and Social Affairs). In the past, he worked as Programme Director of the animal protection organisation Four Paws, and has led global corporate and public policy campaigns for ActionAid, Greenpeace International, and communication campaigns for Greenpeace national offices. He studied Genetics at Comenius University in Bratislava.

Dr. Milena Horvat

Milena Horvat has been the head of the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Jožef Stefan Institute since 1997 and the dean of the Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School since 2016. Her main expertise is in the field of mercury research, which is interdisciplinary in nature and covers analytical chemistry, human health, polluted areas, the marine environment, clean technologies, and sensor development.

Outi Ilvonen

Outi Ilvonen is a researcher at UBA (German Environment Agency) and works on green building materials, green chemistry, and material safety. She is the author of numerous scientific publications investigating the chemical safety, climate change impacts, and other environmental effects of construction materials, as well as the quality of the indoor living environment.

Thomas Jakl

Thomas Jakl has served since 2015 as Deputy Director-General for Environmental Protection and Circular Economy at the Austrian Ministry for Climate Action (BMK). He is also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Federal Agency for Contaminated Sites Remediation (Bundesagentur für Altlastensanierung) and a Supervisory Board Member of the Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt). He holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Vienna and is a certified Supervisory Expert (UBIT-Akademie Incite).

Grazvydas Jegelevicius

Grazvydas Jegelevicius worked for three years as an analytical chemist focusing on environmental pollutants and for seven years as a chemical expert at the Baltic Environmental Forum Lithuania, contributing to major international projects on chemicals management (LIFE Fit for REACH), public education (NonHazCity), and agroecological development (UNISECO, Horizon 2020). He is also the founder of the Natural Agriculture Institute, an NGO dedicated to preserving heritage plant varieties and promoting nature-friendly, permaculture-based food systems.

Eugeniy Lobanov (moderator)

Eugeniy Lobanov is an environmentalist with more than 20 years of experience in sustainable lifestyles, chemical safety, waste management, and environmental health at national and international levels. He heads the Chemicals and Waste Programme at the Aplinkosaugos Sprendimų Centras (Lithuania) and serves as Working Area Leader on Hazardous Substances and Marine Litter at Coalition Clean Baltic, where he is also Chair of the Board. A biologist by training (Belarus State University), he is also active in the Christian environmental movement.

Pelle Moos PhD

Pelle Moos has over 10 years’ experience working on chemicals policy, first as a researcher specializing in nanotech and regulatory politics – and since 2015 as a public affairs practitioner focusing on consumer protection and product regulation. Currently, he work as senior advisor at BEUC, where he leads on advocacy, manage projects, support member campaigns, develop policy reports, and – best of all – engage with decisionmakers and stakeholders to drive change that matters to people and our planet.

Mecki Naschke

Mecki Naschke is Project Manager of the NonHazCity 3 EU project, promoting circularity in the construction industry in the Baltic Sea region. She has extensive experience in chemicals policy, ecological certification, and chemical assessment of textiles, leather, plastics, and pesticides, and holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering and Management from Lausanne.

Ilze Neimane

Ilze Neimane is an experienced Board Member with a strong background in management consulting. Currently a Project Expert at the Ecodesign Competence Centre, she specializes in strategic planning, project management, change management, and public lectures. She holds two Master’s degrees from Latvijas Universitāte – in Environmental Science and in Social Sciences.

Dr. Aleksandra Rutkowska

Aleksandra Rutkowska studies the influence of endocrine active compounds (ED) on health disorders. She is the author of the position of the Polish Society of Endocrinology on these compounds. She created and coordinates a nationwide campaign to fight the polycystic ovary syndrome and the Detoxed Lifestyle Challenge campaign, which reduces human exposure to endocrine active substances. She co-created three patent applications and an analyzer for detecting ED in drinking water and wastewater. She is a laureate of many international scientific conferences, a scholarship holder of the Danish Novo Nordisk pharmaceutical concert and winner of the Red Rose award for the best scientific club in the Tri-City.

Prof. Dr. Martin Scheringer

Martin Scheringer is a professor of environmental chemistry at Masaryk University and works in the research program on Environmental Chemistry and Modeling at RECETOX. He also works as a senior scientist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He holds a diploma in chemistry from the Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, and a doctoral degree and a habilitation from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. He has worked for almost 30 years in the fields of environmental and human exposure assessment, environmental persistence and long-range transport of organic chemicals, and chemical risk and hazard assessment and has developed a suite of environmental fate models and human pharmacokinetic models.

Paul Speight

Paul Speight is Head of the Safe and Sustainable Chemicals Unit in DG Environment at the European Commission. He has previously led work on enforcement, Brexit negotiations, agriculture, pesticides, waste legislation, and green public procurement, and holds law degrees from the Universities of Liverpool and Bordeaux.