Speakers

She is now CEO of Paradigm Norton Financial Planning, a B Corp and employee-owned firm that helps clients align their money with their values delivering high-quality financial planning alongside a strong focus on sustainable, responsible investing and stewardship.

She is co-author of The Fault Lines of Finance, written with neuropsychologist Dr Moira Somers.

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Richard Brown, partner, technology & commercial transactions | Travers Smith

Richard Brown specialises in high value and complex commercial contracts, collaborations and outsourcings. A member of Travers Smith’s ESG & Impact Group, he has deep experience in the energy and infrastructure sector. He is regularly called upon to help clients devise, structure and implement cutting edge net-zero transitions and investments, across heating and cooling, renewable energy, fibre, last mile networks, smart meters and energy data platforms.

Richard is ranked in The Legal 500’s Hall of Fame and as a Band 1 Lawyer in Chambers and Partners for Commercial Contracts.

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Sarah Walker, partner, real estate, Travers Smith

Sarah is a Partner in the Real Estate team at Travers Smith with a particular expertise in advising on sustainable real estate, including green leases, social clauses, and aligning ESG investment and portfolio asset management strategies.  She also chairs Travers Smith’s AI Strategic Committee and is an AI leader within the business.

Sarah has considerable experience across a varied range of asset classes, staying close to market trends alongside her clients. She also specialises in advising clients on green leases, social clauses, and integrating ESG into investment and asset management strategies across a wide variety of asset classes—including city centre developments, offices, care homes and senior housing.  Combining her technical and ESG interests, Sarah has a focus in Data Centres and Powered Land deals.  Although yet to become mainstream within Data Centre developments, her strong ESG focus on energy transition is of particular interest to clients seeking to develop digital investment strategies that are sustainable in the longer term.

In 2025, Sarah Walker won the John Cartwright Award for Outstanding Individual at the AREF Awards, in recognition of her ESG thought leadership, including launching the ESG Myth-Busting Podcast.

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John Buttanshaw, partner, operational risk & environment | co-head of ESG & impact, Travers Smith

A regulatory expert – recognised across the legal directories (including as a Green Ambassador in the Legal 500) for deep expertise in energy, environmental and climate matters in particular – John is leader in the field of ESG, and co-heads Travers Smith’s ESG & Impact practice. John has a longstanding background in advising a range of clients (spanning the full spectrum from global corporates and asset managers, through to new market entrants and innovators, and across multiple sectors) on risk matters, across environmental, safety, human rights and energy related laws. John acts on both compliance and regulatory enforcement and defence mandates – including major Environment Agency and Health and Safety Executive enforcement actions – and is able to leverage that broad skillset and understanding, and regulatory enforcement perspective, to provide a uniquely holistic offering to clients on ESG matters. He regularly works with clients on complying with or preparing for current and emergent ESG reporting legislation such as TCFD and CSRD, preparing for upcoming supply chain legislation such as the CS3D and deforestation regimes, as well as on transition planning, broader ESG horizon scanning, greenwashing and governance mandates.

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Georgina Becker, human-centric responsible AI consultant, Kainos

Human-Centered Responsible AI Specialist, focused on helping organizations design, deploy and govern AI with the full human impact in mind – across the entire lifecycle, and for everyone affected, not just the direct user.

Georgina’s approach to responsible AI looks beyond technical performance to the quieter human risks that many frameworks miss: over trust, exclusion, and fatigue. Her interpretation of human-centred AI is to take the holistic understanding that AI and people shape one another, and that the values, culture and psychology surrounding an AI system are as important as the system itself.

Georgina works across human-centred design, governance, and socio-technical risk, with experience in the public sector. Particularly interested in the intersection of AI and sustainability, ensuring the full human and environmental cost of AI is part of the conversation from the start.

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Lisa Lischak, general counsel, Nexora

Lisa Lischak is a dual qualified (NY/England & Wales) General Counsel, Compliance and Sustainability leader with extensive inhouse experience in the energy, FMCG and technology sectors.  She is General Counsel for Nexora, the technology division of FTSE 100 DCC plc overseeing legal, compliance, cosec, quality and sustainability for the technology distribution and services businesses globally.    Lisa is secretary to the Sustainability Committee.  She is member of the Sustainability Committee of a global technology trade association leading on the development of an ESG data lake and data exchange protocol in technology supply chains.  As co-chair, she developed the content for the Sustainability Masterclass series for The Eagles Club (an association of 500+ General Counsel/C-suite members globally, established to support dynamic and innovative women in senior leadership positions) together with a leading London-based law firm and pre-eminent environmental law NGO.

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Helen Bowdren, partner, Dentons

Helen leads the market-leading ESG team at Dentons. She advises clients on all aspects of environmental, climate change, societal and human rights issues, across a wide range of sectors including energy, manufacturing, industrial and chemicals. Her practice is varied and includes transactional work as well as advisory and litigation, including Environment Agency and HSE investigations and prosecutions, judicial reviews and statutory appeals. She advises on environmental permitting, pollution liability, waste law, climate change, health and safety law, and product liability. Helen has an international practice, having worked in Dubai and South Africa, and regularly advises on environmental risk in cross-border transactions. Helen is recognised in Chambers and Legal 500 for her expertise.

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Alexander McGregor, partner, Dentons

Alex is a Litigation partner in Dentons’ London office. He advises on a wide range of commercial disputes and contentious regulatory matters. Alex has a particular focus on ESG litigation and product liability issues. He has acted on cross-border claims, group/class actions and regulatory investigations for clients across the energy and resources, automotive, manufacturing, technology, and healthcare sectors.

Alex has spent time on secondment to one of the world’s largest energy companies, a major consumer goods client and a multinational metals and mining corporation.

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Oliver Light, principal director and sustainability lead for private equity and real estate, Accenture UK&I

Oliver Light is a Principal Director and Sustainability Lead for Private Equity and Real Estate at Accenture UK&I, where he advises some of the largest institutional investors and asset owners on decarbonisation, climate risk, and the transition to net zero. He sits on the UK:RE Sustainability Committee and holds further industry positions with GRESB (Expert Resource), the IIGCC (Real Estate) and CREFC Europe. Much of his current focus is on convening the industry around more systemic, collaborative approaches to net zero – moving beyond asset-by-asset action toward the shared frameworks, data standards and just-transition principles needed to decarbonise the built environment at scale. He leads industry thought leadership including AREF’s Just Transition article series and holds an Executive MBA from Bayes Business School.

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Chantal Beaudoin, head of ESG, Knight Frank Investment Management

Chantal turns net zero ambition into real-world delivery at scale. She has led pioneering initiatives including the world’s first Whole Life Net Zero Carbon Hotel and the transition of 1 billion plastic straws to paper across McDonald’s UK. With 20+ years’ experience, she works with boards and leadership teams to embed ESG into investment, asset strategy and development – delivering measurable carbon reduction, commercial value and impact across real estate and corporate portfolios.

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George Pawley, general counsel, Oxygen Conservation

George is General Counsel and Company Secretary at Oxygen Conservation. George has led the legal process on each of Oxygen Conservation’s twelve land acquisitions, comprising over 50,000 acres across England, Wales and Scotland, and advised on its award-winning £20.55m debt facility raised with Triodos Bank. He works closely with the business’ Natural Capital team on the design, delivery and monetisation of carbon and biodiversity net gain projects.

George was named as one of the ‘Hot 100’ by The Lawyer in 2024, and Oxygen Conservation’s in-house legal team was ‘highly commended’ in the Growth Businesses’ category at The Lawyer Awards 2026. Prior to joining Oxygen Conservation, George worked in private practice as a corporate lawyer, before moving in-house with Oxygen House Group in 2016.

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Ben Stansfield, sustainability partner, Gowling WLG

Ben is one the UK’s leading lawyers combining both planning and environmental law expertise. He advises clients in the public, private, and third sectors on all aspects of development, including infrastructure projects, and has particular expertise and experience at the intersection of development and environmental protection. Ben is well recognised for his legal expertise in relation to biodiversity net gain (BNG), and has acted for landowners, habitat banks, a Responsible Body, and developers subject to BNG requirements.

Ben is the former Vice Chair of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association (UKELA) and was a Trustee for UKELA for more than 13 years. He also speaks internationally on UK and European sustainability issues, and is one of the few lawyers recommended for both planning and environmental law in the principal legal directories. In addition, he has been recognised in The Legal 500 Green Ambassadors list for the past two years running, since its launch in 2025.

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James Thorne, associate general counsel, Associated British Foods plc

James is a UK-based solicitor responsible for the management of sustainability and ESG legal matters globally at ABF plc.

ABF is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group listed in the UK, which owns businesses and consumer brands such as Primark, Twinings, Ovaltine, British Sugar, Patak’s and Kingsmill.

James is also a director of the Business & Human Rights Lawyers Association. Previously, he worked as a litigator at Tesco and at Freshfields, specialising in environmental and product liability disputes.