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.

Before joining Impax in 2019 Chris worked at Ricardo Energy & Environment for eight years as Director of Climate Change, Clean Growth and Strategic Partnerships. Here he was responsible for overseeing key projects in the aforementioned areas as well as building relationships with clients in the public and financial services sectors. Prior to this he worked for 10 years at the heart of the UK Government’s work on climate change, including leading the UK’s implementation of the EU Emissions Trading System and heading the UK Delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Chris began his career as a solicitor at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer where he worked on a variety of civil, criminal and public law litigation relating to the impact of pollution on the environment and human health.

Chris graduated with a BA Hons in Classics from the University of Cambridge in 1990 and later went on to achieve a Master of Laws in Environmental Law from University College London in 2002.