Stephen is a leading environmental and insurance lawyer, specialising in mitigating ESG liabilities for corporates, lenders and public sector bodies.
Stephen advises environmental and construction insurers on non-litigious issues. He is a specialist in ESG, contaminated land and environmental insurance and has co-founded several successful ventures in the environmental data, insurance and consulting sectors, providing legal, practical and commercial advice to entrepreneurs, start-ups and other early-stage businesses.
He is chair and Non-Executive Director of environmental organisations. He is Past Chair of the UK Environmental Law Association (2015-17) and has chaired several scientific consultancies.
He is a Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck College’s Centre for Innovation Management Research, which is part of the University of London, where he tutors postgraduate students from around the world on the Entrepreneurial Venture Creation course.
He is a director of Ashfield Risk Transfer Solutions – a specialist independent broker of environmental, construction, planning and legal indemnity insurance solutions which are used to facilitate complex commercial transactions.
Expertise
- Environmental law
- Corporate due diligence relating environmental liabilities
- Commercial Property
- Construction, Energy & Projects
- Real Estate
- Social Housing
- Contaminated / brownfield sites
- Remediation
- Green buildings / leases
- Environmental data to support property transactions and development
- Environmental permits / licences
- Environmental insurance claims
- Water pollution
- Air pollution
- Noise pollution
- Climate risk management
Recent work
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Worked on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill helping BP to quantify its financial provision for the world’s most expensive pollution incident (>$50bn).
The UK Environmental Law Association (UKELA)
Chaired Europe’s leading environmental law professional association – the UK Environmental Law Association (UKELA) between 2015-2017. He set up UKELA’s Brexit Task Force to assist the devolved administrations with the management of the complex implications which leaving the EU will have on environmental laws. His leadership of UKELA was recognised by Lord Carnwath as ‘strong and innovative’.
The National Judges College
Presented paper on land contamination to a forum of 125 environmental judges at the National Judges College in Beijing in December 2017.
Languages
- French
