The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has welcomed the appointment of two new Board members.
Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has confirmed the appointments of Professor Elizabeth Fisher and Caroline May to the OEP Board.
Professor Elizabeth Fisher is Professor of Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. She has over three decades experience as an environmental law academic and writes widely on environmental law and administrative law in national common law jurisdictions. She was General Editor of the Journal of Environmental Law from 2012 to 2022 and between 2022-25 she held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a project exploring legal imagination and environmental law. She is a Delegate of Oxford University Press and has served as Vice Dean of the Oxford Law Faculty. She is an Overseas Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and She has been a Member of the OEP’s Advisory Group on Environmental Principles since 2023.
Caroline May has been a specialist environmental lawyer for over 35 years. She is currently head of the environment, ESG and safety practice for Europe, Middle East and Asia at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, where she has been a partner since 2006. She is Chair of the Law Society Climate Change Committee which produced the world’s first professional services guidance on climate change. She is Honorary President of the Legal Sustainability Alliance and a former Director of leading sustainability NGO, the Aldersgate Group. She sat on the National Council of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association (UKELA) for 6 years. She is a Freeman of the City of London and is listed in the Ends Power List 2024 and as a Green Ambassador for the UK by Legal 500 and is listed in the Guide to the World’s leading environmental lawyers.
Dame Glenys Stacey, Chair of the OEP, said: “I would like to welcome Elizabeth and Caroline to our Board. They have both had such distinguished careers and will bring much experience, expertise and insight to our work.
“We look forward to the contribution they can make and are keen to get them started in their new roles.”
These appointments come following the end of Professor Richard Macrory CBE’s term on the OEP Board and due to a longer-term vacancy.
Dame Glenys added: “I would like to thank Richard for his vital contributions, which were instrumental in steering this organisation through the early days of our establishment and into becoming an operational and effective organisation.
“His knowledge, insight and humour will be missed by the OEP, and we wish him well in all he does next.”
The terms of two current Board members, Paul Leinster CBE and Professor Dan Laffoley, have been extended by 18 months.
The Defra announcement about these appointments can be found here.
