Barry McDermott has joined the judging panel for the Business Energy Achievement Awards 2026. Director of Environment and Sustainability Services at PM Group, he leads global environmental strategies and ESG initiatives across both office operations and client services, bringing a practical and strategically informed perspective to his panel role.

His career at PM Group has centred on converting sustainability ambition into outcomes that are measurable, operationally embedded, and commercially credible. He has spearheaded major decarbonisation programmes across multiple geographies, introduced innovative sustainability solutions for clients operating in complex and highly regulated industries, and driven the embedding of ethical practices throughout PM Group's supply chain.

This last area of work is particularly demanding, requiring sustained engagement across procurement, contractor relationships, and governance frameworks to ensure that sustainability standards are upheld beyond the boundaries of the organisation itself. As a key member of PM Group's ESG committee, McDermott works at the intersection of environmental strategy and business decision-making, ensuring that the firm's sustainability commitments translate into concrete actions at project and operational level.

His academic and professional credentials provide firm technical grounding for all of that work. McDermott holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering and is a certified sustainability assessor, with specialist expertise across carbon management, renewable energy systems, and water and wastewater engineering. That foundation equips him to assess sustainability performance with scientific precision, going well beyond headline figures to examine the rigour of methodology, the robustness of supporting data, and the degree to which an organisation's energy strategy is coherent, scalable, and aligned with Ireland's national decarbonisation objectives. In a judging context, that analytical depth is essential to ensuring the integrity and credibility of the evaluation process.

Throughout his career, McDermott has contributed to award-winning sustainability projects across a broad range of sectors and operational scales. That record reflects both the quality of the work he has delivered and the high standards he applies when assessing the performance of others. His capacity to weigh innovation, strategic depth, and demonstrable real-world impact in equal measure makes him a well-rounded and authoritative presence on the panel.

His appointment reinforces the Business Energy Achievement Awards' commitment to expert-led, independent evaluation across all categories represented in the 2026 programme.

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