In This Month's Newsletter:
BSI Nature Market Standards Launched for Consultation
Comment on BSI Flex 701 by 1st May
Reflecting on envecon 2024
Plus: watch the welcome & keynote speech for free
eftec Senior Consultant Joins the OEP College of Experts
Congratulations to Natalya Kharadi
Welcoming Robert Marks and Crystal Chan
Our new team members
BSI Nature Market Standards: First Edition Launched for Consultation
Comment on BSI Flex 701 by 1st May
The British Standards Institute (BSI) Nature Investment Standards programme has released its first output for consultation: Nature Markets - Overarching Principles and Framework – Specification. eftec Director, Ian Dickie, is the Technical Author for the programme.
The draft standard aims to establish a high-level framework for consistency and integrity across nature markets in the UK. It aims to support the high integrity of units, ensure delivery of positive environmental outcomes, protect against the risk of negative outcomes, support the deterrence and detection of greenwashing, and act as a basis against which future standards on specific aspects of nature markets can certify their high integrity.
This draft standard has been developed for Defra using contributions from a variety of organisations. Through the consultation process, it will benefit from the widest possible range of stakeholder inputs to help guide the development of nature markets in the UK. Please consider submitting your feedback by 1st May 2024. To download the document and submit your feedback, visit the BSI website here.
Picture, SLIM Images: www.flickr.com/stevel
Reflecting on envecon 2024
Watch the Welcome from Ece Ozdemiroglu and Keynote from Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE
Earlier this month, the eftec team spent the day at envecon 2024, UKNEE’s annual applied environmental economics conference which we help organise.
We were honoured to welcome Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE to deliver a keynote speech titled ‘Key Messages from Climate Science for Economists’. You can view the speech in full, with introductory remarks from eftec CEO Ece Ozdemiroglu, at the link above.
Emily gives a clear update on the latest climate science and provides a shining example of the multidisciplinary approaches we must take in response. Ece shares her observations on the recent changes in applied environmental economics.
The rest of the day featured a wide variety of topic areas and methodologies, all of which showcased this multidisciplinary approach to economic research and had direct implications for decision making in policy, business, and finance.
If you’d like to watch the sessions from this envecon (and all envecon and UKNEE events since 2021) you can do so by becoming an UKNEE member here. We would like to thank this year’s sponsors and collaborators for supporting the conference: EAERE, CSERGE, Pyramids of Life, Dragon Capital (LEEP), and CIWEM.
eftec Senior Consultant Appointed to the OEP College of Experts
Natalya Kharadi Joins Group Advising the Office for Environmental Protection
eftec Senior Consultant, Natalya Kharadi, has been appointed to the Office for Environmental Protection’s (OEP) newly formed College of Experts. Natalya has taken up this voluntary role to provide specialist knowledge to the OEP alongside a diverse cohort of peers from multiple institutions and disciplines.
Professor Robbie McDonald, OEP Chief Scientist, said the College of Experts will provide “an additional means for us to broaden our evidence base, identify and review key areas of research, and enhance the provision of external expertise, challenge and advice.”
As part of this role, Natalya will be providing peer review, constructively challenging the work of the OEP and their suppliers, and supporting the OEP’s prospective analyses and horizon scanning.
Welcoming Robert Marks and Crystal Chan
This month we have welcomed two new team members: Robert and Crystal.
About Robert
Robert, who joins us a Senior Consultant, is an economist with experience working both internationally and within the UK on macroeconomic models, natural capital accounting, project evaluation methods and spatial analysis.
Prior to joining eftec, he was an Analyst at the Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice at the World Bank in Washington, DC, where he was the main analyst and co-author for the Changing Wealth of Nations Project. He also worked as an economist and policy adviser at HM Treasury, where he was a core team member on the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity.
Robert holds an MSc in Environmental Economics and Climate Change (Distinction) from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics from the University of Bristol.
About Crystal
Crystal joins eftec as a Researcher and will support the team across our service areas. She holds a Bachelor of Economics and Finance from the University of Hong Kong, and a MSc in Economics, Policy of Energy and the Environment from the University College London (with Distinction).
During her master study, she focused on environmental and resources economics, energy-environment-economic modelling, and behavioural economics. She also holds a Certificate of ESG Investing under the CFA Institute.