Our staff
Dr Shivali Fifield
ERCS Chief Officer
Shivali has a PhD in Urban Studies and her thesis used environmental justice theory and participatory action research with disadvantaged groups to challenge greenspace inequality in Glasgow. Previous to ERCS, Shivali’s professional career focused on developing multidisciplinary front-line services, in both London and Glasgow, in the fields of youth work, rough sleeping and refugee integration. She has worked at a senior level in health, social work and third sector organisations to deliver robust strategic and operational responses to social, environmental and climate justice issues. Shivali has also been a trustee for national and local charities supporting community wealth building and access to nature-rich greenspace.
Dr Ben Christman
ERCS Legal Director
Ben worked at a law centre specialising in housing and human rights law for several years. He wrote the 2018 report for Scottish Environment LINK on the feasibility of setting up the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland. He has published several articles on environmental law, including a number on access to environmental justice in Scotland. He is a trustee of Planning Democracy.
Kate Smith
ERCS In-house Solicitor
Kate spent several years specialising in housing and homelessness law at a national charity before moving to ERCS. She currently volunteers at an environmental campaign group and has a keen interest in access to justice for individuals. In her spare time, she is a member of a book group and a writing group, and enjoys walking her dog, cooking and attempting creative projects.
Preslava Todorova
ERCS Assistant Legal Officer
Preslava has broad experience in legal research and analysis, as well as in project management. Prior to joining ERCS, she worked on research in the field of renewable energy and greenwashing. Her past work with a Glasgow-based environmental start-up included project management and policy research for saline water farms in the west of Scotland. Alongside working for ERCS, she volunteers for a rewilding charity. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, learning languages, and pickling.
Cornell Hanxomphou
ERCS Rights Officer
Cornell has wide-ranging experience in environmental rights, policy, and science. He has previously worked with racialised groups on environmental and climate justice issues coordinating the Ethnic Minority Environmental Network in Scotland. He has researched land, water and food systems policy in Scotland and Australia. He previously consulted on contaminated lands and environmental impact assessments. Cornell studied environmental science at the Australian National University and completed a thesis in climate science. He enjoys rock climbing, snowboarding, and making music.
Benji Brown
ERCS Policy & Advocacy Officer
Benji has experience as a researcher, writer and campaigner on social, economic, and environmental justice. He holds an MSc in Environment & Development from the University of Edinburgh, where his thesis explored community resistance to opencast coal mining, and has worked closely with climate, housing and migrant groups across Scotland. Prior to joining ERCS, he worked at Water Witness to strengthen citizen participation and accountability in the water sector, and has conducted research on land and resource politics in India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. In his spare time he enjoys circus, playing mandolin, and hurling himself into the sea.
Julia Leino
ERCS Policy & Communications Officer
Julia has experience in environmental policy, research, and communications. She holds an MSc in Environmental Sustainability from the University of Edinburgh, where she focussed on biodiversity, agriculture and land use with an emphasis on equity. Her thesis explored the environmental impacts of farmer co-operation, and she continues to research environmental governance and sustainable food systems. Before joining ERCS, Julia worked as a theatre producer at Fuel, developing award-winning productions by emerging artists and creating ways of experiencing theatre that engaged new audiences.
Jack Withy
ERCS Finance & Operations Manager
Jack has a varied career history having worked in fundraising, customer services, and financial services. He has a passion for the environment and is currently undertaking further education in organisational sustainability. In his free time Jack enjoys hiking, baking bread, and rock climbing.
Emma Donaldson
ERCS Finance & Administration Officer
Emma is also Chair of the Love Lenzie community organisation. Before her career break, she practised as a dual-qualified (English/Scots law) solicitor with law centre, in-house and private practice experience. She has an interest in the environment, community work and access to justice. Her favourite activity is skiing in the mountains, ideally in the sunshine!
Zoë Molloy
ERCS Administration Officer
Zoë has experience in arts administration and visitor engagement, having graduated with a BA Hons in Fine Art from Newcastle University. Prior to joining ERCS she worked in various roles including at The National Galleries of Scotland, Cambridge Contemporary Art and The National Trust, where she worked as an Outdoors Assistant delivering guided boat tours to members of the public and volunteer Ranger at Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve. An artist specialising in printmaking, illustration and sculpture, Zoë enjoys hiking, camping and bird watching, with nature being a massive influence on her own creative practice.Our trustees
Lloyd Austin
ERCS Chair
Lloyd is an experienced environmental policy analyst and advocate. With over 30 years’ experience working for NGOs, Lloyd has a demonstrable track record in influencing legislation and policy development. With NGOs or NGO umbrella groups, primarily in Scotland but also at UK level and overseas, he has worked as an expert in environmental law and policy. Lloyd has worked in areas such as nature conservation, climate change, marine management, planning and environmental justice/governance. He has been engaged in or led NGO arguments in several major planning cases, up to and including Judicial Review. He has presented both written and oral evidence to UK and Scottish Parliamentary Committees and to Public Local Inquiries. He is also skilled in and has experience of organisational and people management, particularly within NGOs and NGO partnerships. He is an Honorary Fellow of both Scottish Environment LINK and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
Julie Christie
ERCS Treasurer
Julie has significant experience of supporting Scottish charities to access vital funding, which she gained through her long-running involvement with Parkhead Citizens Advice Bureau, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Foundation Scotland, the Institute of Fundraising and other organisations. In 2017, she received the Institute of Fundraising’s Scottish Excellence Award for her contributions to fundraising in Scotland. Julie has a keen interest in the natural environment, having grown up in the Scottish Borders. After moving to the east end of Glasgow, she was Treasurer for Shettleston Community Growing Project for many years. She is now the Scotland Coordinator for the Environmental Funders Network to grow the amount of funding for environmental causes across Scotland.
Dr Deborah Long
ERCS Vice-Chair
Deborah has been Chief Officer at Scottish Environment LINK, the network for environmental NGOs in Scotland since February 2019. Her role is to ensure the effective delivery of LINK’s strategic vision to deliver a strong coherent voice in pursuit of a sustainable Scotland. Key to this is providing leadership for the staff team and enabling LINK members to take effective action together. Deborah has extensive senior leadership experience in natural and cultural heritage in Scotland, and most recently led a multi-partner international consortium working with citizens, climate and soil scientists and policy makers across Europe to gather, share and use data on soil and land management. Trained as a palaeoecologist, Deborah maintains an active interest in plants and growing and spends as much time as she can outdoors in Scotland and across the world, sea kayaking, cross country skiing and hill walking. When the weather is terrible, she reads.
Tom Ballantine
Tom’s career has encompassed law, environmental campaigning and management. He set up and led an award-winning family law team doing significant work within the Scottish Legal Aid system. He is an accredited family mediator, has worked as a mediation trainer and has co-authored 2 books on excellence in family law. Tom left legal practice in 2010 to focus on environmental campaigning and management. From 2010 to 2022 he chaired the board of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland. He is a founding Trustee of Open Seas a charity campaigning on marine protection. Tom’s other governance experience includes a 20-year period on the board of Friends of the Earth Scotland from 1988 to 2008, including a period as Chair from 1990 to 1992. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Tom’s interests include hill walking, cycling, writing and football.
Prof Kevin Dunion
Kevin first became involved in environmental activism when he worked for Oxfam, travelling through India documenting the adverse impacts of aid projects. As Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland he introduced the concept of environmental justice to its work. His book Troublemakers – the Struggle for Environmental Justice in Scotland draws on the experience of communities across Scotland tackling polluting industries, landfills, and opencast mining. He was the first Scottish Information Commissioner and is the author of Freedom of Information in Scotland in Practice. Now an Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee, and a Director of its Centre for Freedom of Information, he is an international consultant on FoI working in countries as varied as Brazil, Tunisia and Croatia.
Prof Campbell Gemmell
Campbell is an Honorary Fellow of LINK, a Life Fellow of the RSA, a visiting professor at Strathclyde University Law School and a former environmental regulator in Scotland and Australia, where he was CEO of the Environmental Protection Agencies, first in Scotland, then in South Australia. He has a PhD in glaciology, academic affiliations with the universities of Stirling, Glasgow and South Australia, and is a certificated mediator. He has advised Scottish and UK governments, the OECD and World Bank, and institutions and agencies in Australia and across the EU on environment policy issues: including governance, regulatory practice, air pollution, water regulation, unconventional hydrocarbons and radioactive waste management. He is currently an expert adviser on environmental regulation to the OECD.
Juliet Harris
Juliet is Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights) and Vice Chair of the Children’s Parliament. Over the past decade, Juliet has led work to progress the human rights of children across legislation, policy and practice. Working with children, young people and civil society organisations across Scotland, Juliet has been at the forefront of the successful campaign to make children’s rights binding in law through the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law. She is a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and her work on children’s rights has been published widely. When not working, Juliet spends as much time as possible exploring the outdoors, climbing, biking, running or skiing to the most remote places she can find.
Jim Jarvie
Jim works on climate adaptation, urban resilience, natural resource management, and disaster response, mainly focusing on Southeast and South Asia. He held leadership roles in international development and humanitarian capacities in both conservation and humanitarian NGOs. He consults for government and civil society clients in the same areas. He publishes and presents environmental and societal issues, climate change, and disaster resilience. Since his return to the UK, Jim has built on his experience in community efforts to ensure a clean and secure environment in and around the Water of Leith, facilitated through the community-based organisation SOSLeith.
Pippa Scott
Pippa’s experience lies in pollution control, water, climate resilience and urban development. Working as a consultant she has provided technical advisory on both global water issues and local climate actions and enjoys identifying levers for change and challenging the art of the possible. Pippa is also involved in grassroots campaigns for environmental justice and is currently the co-chair of the River Almond Action Group, a community-based group campaigning against sewage pollution of the River Almond in West Lothian Scotland.
Aedán Smith
Aedán is Head of Policy and Advocacy for RSPB Scotland and a board member of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland. He is chartered town planner and has worked on some of Scotland’s most high profile and contentious environmental planning cases. Aedán has particular experience of reconciling the wildlife and climate impacts of plans and projects and of working with governments and public and private sectors to further environmental objectives.
Clare Symonds
Clare is the founder and chair of Planning Democracy, an organisation that campaigns for a fairer, more inclusive planning system in Scotland. Clare is also on the executive of the Scottish Community Alliance and is a community councillor. She has worked as a community development and sustainable development officer in both local government and the voluntary sector. She has campaigned for social and environmental change in many ways over the years from the anti-roads protests of the mid 1990’s to campaigning to give communities an Equal Right of Appeal in planning in 2019. She is also a qualified nurse and keen hill runner.Our associates
A special thanks to our associates, who offer expertise to inform the development of ERCS’s work programmes and provide additional support in their specialist areas.
Ann Coleman
Ann Coleman has been a community and environmental justice campaigner for over 25 years and is a member of the Human Rights Lived Experience Board. She lives in Greengairs, North Lanarkshire, a few hundred meters away from the largest capacity landfill in Europe, and has been a key activist in highlighting the environmental injustices faced by her community. She was one of the first people to attain the higher education certificate in environmental justice at Queen Margaret University (now ceased). Ann is an active member of her community council and honorary trustee for Planning Democracy. In 2004, Ann was awarded an MBE for services to environmental justice and her local community.
Aekus Kamboj
Aekus is a passionate and strategic climate change professional with experience leading on campaigning, community engagement and influencing work. She currently leads the environmental team at CEMVO Scotland while developing a diverse portfolio of environmental justice related projects and partnerships. She has a strong belief in the power of people in creating change and uses creativity and innovation to spearhead local and national engagement initiatives, specialising in working with ethnic-minority communities. Aekus holds multiple advisory board positions where she provides expertise on environmental justice, namely at People’s Plan for Nature, Green and Global, Treescapes UK and GALLANT. Aekus enjoys public speaking and frequently joins conferences and events across the sector to share knowledge and ideas. You can find Aekus in a local café with a book and a flat white on the weekends.
Mark Lazarowicz
Mark is an advocate, specialising in various aspects of public law. He is an Honorary Fellow of Scottish Environment Link, and as such was closely involved in the preparatory work for the establishment of ERCS. He was Member of Parliament for Edinburgh North & Leith between 2001 and 2015, and was a leading member of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee for many years. Prior to election as an MP, he had been Leader of Edinburgh City Council for many years. He is an active member of a number of local environmental and other community campaigns in North Edinburgh.
Alison McNab
Alison is a Scottish solicitor with an interest in environmental and planning law matters. Now working in the field of miscarriages of justice, until January 2023, Alison was a Policy Manager in the Law Society of Scotland’s policy team, leading its work on civil law and focusing on environmental and planning law matters, property and land issues, rural and marine matters among others. Alison worked with the Society’s expert committee members in these areas and led the Society’s work on COP26 and policy work on climate change. She has strong experience of engaging and building relationships with stakeholders, and delivering on policy projects. Alison has previously worked in private practice. When not working, Alison enjoys volunteering with Girlguiding at local and national level, and spending time in the outdoors with family and friends.
Prof Colin Reid
Colin is Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Dundee where he has worked since 1991. He has taught and written on various environmental law and public law themes, including biodiversity law, climate law and devolution, and access to environmental information. In recent years he has been heavily involved in exploring the consequences of Brexit for environmental governance, particularly in relation to devolved responsibilities. He was a founding member and is now a Patron of the UK Environmental Law Association and has frequently been called on to give evidence to parliamentary committees at Westminster and Holyrood, where he has served as adviser to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee.
Dr Elaine Webster
Dr Elaine Webster (LLM Hons, MA, MA, PhD) is Reader in Human Rights Law and Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law at the University of Strathclyde (Scotland, UK). Dr Webster’s background is in law, international politics, and multidisciplinary human rights research. Her research interests are in interpretation of human rights by different actors, including judicial bodies and civil society advocacy groups. She has a particular interest in the right not to be subjected to degrading treatment, including its application in the socio-economic sphere. A second strand of her research focuses on rights interpretation by a range of actors in the environmental governance context. A cross-cutting theme relates to the meaning and interpretive impact of the principle of respect for dignity, at the level of theory and practice. From 2020-2021, Dr Webster was a member of the Academic Advisory Panel to the Scottish Government’s National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership and is currently a member of its Core Working Group on Human Rights Implementation.
