Holding Our Breath: Air pollution, Clean Air Zones and the role of business
Join like-minded businesses on 24 November and hear from ClientEarth and other experts from industry and government. We’ll help you understand planned and future measures to address air pollution and the role of business in ensuring everyone in the UK enjoys the right to breathe clean air.
The Speakers
James Thornton
Founding CEO, Client Earth
The New Statesman has named him as one of 10 people who could change the world. The Lawyer has picked him as one of the top 100 lawyers in the UK. In 2016, he was named as one of the 1,000 most influential people in London. He has twice won Leader of the Year at the Business Green Awards. The Financial Times awarded him its Special Achievement accolade at the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards.
James launched ClientEarth in 2007, sparking fundamental change in the way environmental protections are made and enforced across Europe. Now operating globally, ClientEarth uses advocacy, litigation and research to address the greatest challenges of our time – including nature loss and climate change.
With his leadership, ClientEarth has made air pollution one of the major issues of the day and brought successful actions protecting the health of citizens across Europe.
Katherine Nield
Lawyer, UK Clean Air, Client Earth
Katie is a Clean Air Lawyer in ClientEarth’s London office, where her work focuses on UK clean air issues and promoting compliance with domestic and international air quality standards.
Since 2011, ClientEarth has launched three successful legal challenges against the UK Government’s failure to commit to action to reduce pollution to within legal limits. Before joining ClientEarth, Katie practiced as a planning and environmental lawyer at international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner.
Stephen Arnold
Head of Clean Air Zone, Birmingham City Council
In his role Stephen is leading the overall mobilisation and delivery of Birmingham City Council’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) programme.
Working across multiple cross directorate workstreams, Stephen ensures the programme aligns to the objectives of the Birmingham Air Quality Strategy, CAZ emissions reduction measures and meets UK and EU targets for nitrogen dioxide – all within the shortest possible time.
Previously he has worked in a number of senior marketing and communication roles in the public sector and commercial worlds, with a specific focus on large scale infrastructure programmes.
Sarah Bell
Public Affairs Manager UK, Ireland and the Nordics, UPS
With 20 years at UPS, Sarah moved to the Public Affairs team at the beginning of 2018, focusing on various policy areas including sustainable transport as well as aviation, international trade and postal issues in the UK, Ireland and Nordic countries.
Sarah previously led the Marketing Communications Team for UPS in the UK. Her responsibilities included developing and implementing Marketing Communication strategies across all channels including advertising, customer communications, public relations, sponsorship and event activation and digital and social media. In that time, she worked on key projects such as the Lynx integration and the London 2012 sponsorship activation.
Dominic Phinn
Business Engagement Co-ordinator, Clean Air, ClientEarth
Dominic Phinn joined ClientEarth in April 2017. Dominic works within the Clean Air team. His focus is to build a coalition of businesses who want to see for strong and enforced regulation around air quality.
Following several years with The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, Dominic worked for Prince’s charity Business in the Community, and more recently for an Ecuador based sustainability consultancy. In both roles he advised a range of companies on how to align their corporate strategies with social and environmental issues.
Kate Armitage
GREENFLEET Ambassador & Clean Energy Consultant
Kate specialises in Electric Vehicles, Recharging Infrastructure and Energy Retailing and was the first recipient of the GREENFLEET EV Champion Award in 2014.
She has been a strong advocate of the electrification of transport since 2010, heading up the EV Team at EDF Energy, and subsequently as Projects Director at Route Monkey. Kate is an Associate for Delta-EE, providing insight and consultancy support for their Electric Vehicles & Electricity Service.
Kate has been involved in a range of ground-breaking projects including the design and technical specification of the recharging infrastructure for the London 2012 Olympic Electric Vehicle Fleet. She has worked closely with OEMs, Infrastructure providers and Energy Companies across Europe.
