HIGH INTEGRITY NATURE MARKETS CONFERENCE
Speakers
Jill May
Chair, Environmental Markets Board
Jill joined the Interim Environmental Markets Board as Chair in January 2024. She has over 20 years’ experience in investment banking, with her executive career spent working in corporate finance for SG Warburg & Co from 1985 to 1995, and senior positions in Group Strategy at UBS where she was a Managing Director from 2001 to 2012. She was a Panel Member from 2013 to 2018 and a Non-Executive Director from 2013 to 2016 of the Competition and Markets Authority, and a Non-Executive Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 2015 to 2019. Jill is currently an External Member of the Prudential Regulation Committee at the Bank of England and a Non-Executive Director of abrdn Property Income Trust and JP Morgan Claverhouse Investment Trust. She is also a Non-Executive Board Member of the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster and a Trustee of Tusk, a charity supporting progressive conservation initiatives across Africa. Jill has family farming links in the West Country and a strong interest in environmental matters and climate change.
Jo Lewis
CEO - Wiltshire Wildlife Trust
Jo Lewis joined the Trust in 2023 from the Soil Association, where she was Policy and Strategy Director for the last eight years. Jo led the ‘Food for Life’ programme, to give every child the chance to grow and cook food and connect with farms, for nearly a decade. She founded the ‘Food for Life Served Here’ scheme which now certifies two million healthy and sustainable meals served every day in schools, hospitals and visitor attractions. Jo is a former Chair of the Food Ethics Council and member of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission’s ‘Farming Leadership Group’. She believes strongly that nature-friendly farmers are the key to nature’s recovery at scale alongside resilient, healthy food production. She remains a Trustee of the Courtyard Farm Trust, set up by Lord Peter Melchett. Before joining the Soil Association, Jo was Convenor of Defra’s Sustainable Consumption Roundtable and Head of Policy at think tank Green Alliance.
Amy Coulthard
Director of Operations, EnTrade
As EnTrade’s Director of Operations, Amy leads on the frontline delivery of the EnTrade business to create high-integrity environmental markets that can be delivered at scale across the UK. In this role she will help shape the policy settings needed to unlock investment in nature. Amy has over 20-years’ experience in leadership roles in the environmental sector and a strong track record of collaborating with external partners to deliver innovative solutions that balance the needs of nature and people. In her previous roles at Defra, Natural England and Avon Wildlife Trust, Amy successfully navigated complex politics and managed relationships with Government, business and the community to deliver meaningful nature recovery on the ground.
David Young
Senior Fellow, The Broadway Initiative
Senior Fellow David Young has extensive experience in climate change, sustainable land use and energy policy reform. A founding Executive Director of Natural England, he now specialises in environmental market design, and the planning and finance of sustainable development. David was the lead author of the Financing Nature Recovery UK Roadmap and Recommendations published in 2022 and is supporting Broadway's work on nature market policy, standards and governance.
Guy Thompson
Managing Director - EnTrade
A seasoned operational and strategic leader, Guy has a reputation as a progressive voice for the environment at the highest levels of government and business. He has extensive experience of environmental policy and regulation, having worked to accelerate action on nature and climate recovery in senior executive roles in the private, public and voluntary sectors. Guy currently has a dual role with Wessex Water as Group Sustainability Director and Managing Director of EnTrade, a Wessex Water business that is creating and operating high-integrity environmental markets. Prior to taking the helm at EnTrade, he was Chief Operating Officer and a founding Executive Director of Natural England, the government’s expert adviser on the natural environment. Before that, he was Director of Green Alliance, a leading think tank known for its ambitious leadership on environmental issues. Throughout his career, he has consistently argued that business innovation is key to delivering better environmental outcomes. At EnTrade, he has enthusiastically taken up the challenge of proving the argument.
Caroline Bush
Associate Director - Osborne Clarke
Caroline is an Associate Director in the Environment team at Osborne Clarke and works with clients from a wide range of sectors on all aspects of environmental and sustainability law, with a particular focus on natural capital. Caroline's principle area of expertise includes all environmental aspects of complex corporate and real estate transactions, as well as advising clients on climate change and sustainability regulation, waste producer responsibility law and the emerging areas of biodiversity law. Her typical work includes environmental due diligence and providing other specialist environmental input in relation to corporate and real estate transactions, as well as providing regulatory environmental advice to clients across the business, often as part of a multi-disciplinary international team. She also works closely with the Planning team on areas such as biodiversity net gain. As part of the Decarbonisation team, Caroline works with clients to help them tackle the carbon challenge, for example by providing strategic advice regarding their approach to ESG and natural capital or by considering the impact of net zero targets on their business.
Susan Twining
Chief Land Use Policy Adviser - The Country Land and Business Association (CLA)
The CLA is a membership organisation for owners of rural land business and property across England and Wales. Susan leads the CLA Land Use team based in London. The team covers policy issues and advice related to agriculture, forestry and woodland, and the environment. This includes issues such as future agriculture policy, natural capital and nature markets. Prior to joining the CLA in 2017, Susan was an associate director of the sustainable food and farming consultancy business at ADAS, with broad experience in practical farming, agronomy advice, research and policy. Susan grew up on a beef and sheep farm in Scotland.
Jackie Clayton
Head of Green Transformation – Bath & North East Somerset Council
Jackie is leading the transition to Net Zero and Nature Recovery at Bath and North East Somerset Council. As a jobshare with Louise Morris, she heads the Council’s Green Transformation Service, delivering strategy, policy and projects on climate, energy, nature and green infrastructure that drive positive change across the Council and district. Prior to joining BANES, Jackie was a senior manager in DEFRA for 13 years, leading a range of environmental policy teams. Her roles included Head of Flood Infrastructure, responsible for investment policy and assurance of £5.2bn Government Floods Capital Investment Programme, alongside flood insurance and flood recovery policy. As Deputy Head of Land Use, she was responsible for developing 25 Year Environment Plan policies on the Review of National Landscapes and legislation mandating Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). In earlier roles, she led development and EU negotiation of England’s 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme and developed the policy framework for England’s first National Adaptation Programme.
Richard Allan
Organic Livestock Farmer, Owner Whaddon Grove Farm
Richard has farmed beef, sheep and top-fruit for 17 years on traditional rotational pasture adjoining the Semington Brook and the River Avon in West Wiltshire. Whaddon Grove Farm is participating in a number of funded biodiversity schemes including re-establishing a network of connected wetlands and riparian buffers, and planting rotational wood pasture (using multi-paddock grazing techniques). Richard is a qualified solicitor and alongside farming works as General Counsel for a FTSE Green Economy manufacturing company. A biologist by training, Richard has a particular interest in the challenges and opportunities presented by the move to carbon neutrality, the greater focus on restoring biodiversity alongside food production, and in the need to store more water on land and improve water quality. He is a member of the Soil Association’s Farmers & Growers Board and a trustee at the Beaver Trust.
Rachel Williams
Area Deputy Director - Wessex, Natural England
Rachel leads the Wessex area team for Natural England. Her team, in partnership with others, deliver outcomes for nature and people across the West of England, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset. She represents Natural England on a range of regional partnerships and has a particular interest in how policy and practice can help shape one another. She has practical experience of nature markets; helping markets to deliver outcomes and align with legislation, such as the Habitat Regulations. Her background is in marine science, and she has spent over 14 years in the environmental sector.