COP26: Mobilising finance for net zero

Outside Impax, Ian is a member of the UK government’s Net Zero Innovation Board, which provides strategic oversight of public sector funding of energy innovation programmes and is a board member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, the European membership body for investor collaboration on addressing climate change. He is also a commissioner with the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of leaders developing transition roadmaps to achieve net-zero emissions. Between 2013 and 2018, he was a board member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK’s leading funding agency for environmental science. He supports charities in the clean energy, healthcare and a range of scientific and environmental sectors.

Ian has a first-class honours degree in physics from Cambridge University and a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University. In the last century he initiated and led an expedition to complete the first summer crossing of the Sahara Desert by tandem bicycle

The Policy & Advocacy team is responsible for advising Impax’s investment teams on the impacts of public policy and leads the firm’s work to support the development of new policies to accelerate a net-zero, nature-positive transition.

Chris joined Impax in 2019.  Prior to joining Impax, Chris worked on climate policy for the UK Government for more than a decade, where he led the UK implementation of the European carbon trading system and the UK delegation to the international climate negotiations. Later, as Director of Climate Change at Ricardo Energy and Environment, Chris supported more than 15 countries in developing and implementing their national climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. 

Chris is an active member of the policy committees and advisory councils of industry associations including UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF), Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the Investment Association.  He is co-chair of the Transition Plan Taskforce’s asset manager working group and a Climate Change Commission for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Chris has a BA Hons in Classics from the University of Cambridge and an LLM in Environmental Law from University College London.