Sustainability and ESG Group

Peter is a Partner in Simmons & Simmons where he leads a department of legal engineers focusing on applying tech, data analysis, design, AI and innovation to legal services. He’s responsible for overseeing growth, client development, people management, P&L and strategy. He is also the head of Simmons’ Cambridge office, sits on the firm’s UK Management Committee, and is the ESG Champion for an International Practice Group at the firm.

In addition to his work in law, Peter is a shareholder of his family’s artisan cheese business, The Torpenhow Cheese Company, which uses milk from his brother’s farm in the Lake District. The farm become fully organic within the last decade and is now a leader within the regenerative farming and soil health communities in the UK. They have won a number of global and national awards, including a Gold medal at the World Cheese Awards and ‘Sustainability Champions’ at the UK Virtual Cheese Awards.

Peter has enjoyed a varied career to date as a marine biologist, soldier, lawyer, technology start-up entrepreneur. He has served as a board trustee for a number of organisations and is very interested in the intersection of sustainability, AI and law.

Simon is a Global Practice Group Partner at DWF and Head of Insurance Business Services, sitting on the Insurance Services Executive. He has 30 years’ experience in leadership in the legal industry, having established a legal start up at the age of twenty-three.

Simon has a profession focus and personal interest in innovation and technology. He leads the digital agenda for DWF’s Insurance Services division, is chair of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers’ Technology and Cyber Sector Focus Team, writes regularly for industry publications on the subject of technology and has recently successfully graduated the London Business School’s “The Business of Artificial Intelligence” and the London School of Economics “The Ethics of AI” programmes.

Through the lens of Sustainability and ESG, coming from a non-professional family and being educated at non-selective state schools, Simon is passionate about social mobility and equality more generally. He is a member of DWF’s Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Group.

Director and founder of Fractal Legal, Lisa is a Solicitor of England and Wales, with 17+ years’ experience advising global and multinational businesses on complex challenges at some of the largest and most prestigious professional services firms in the world, including Slaughter and May, DLA Piper and KPMG.

Lisa is an Open Data Institute Certified Data Ethics Professional and an Honorary Reader in the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London. She is a member of the UK Law Society Technology and Law Committee, where she focuses particularly on AI and digital assets. Lisa is also a member of the UK Legal Technology Association Innovation Sounding Board and of the Sustainability and ESG Committee of the Society for Computers and Law.

Technology lawyer with a passion for innovative tech and new ways of working. Believes in the power of mentoring, and the legal profession’s responsibility to give knowledge back to the community in which it practices.

Sarah Ellington is a recognised expert on disputes relating to environmental, social and human rights issues. Sarah has been ranked for Business and Human Rights – Global Business Leaders in Chambers Global for the past three years. Sarah is described in Chambers Global 2021 as a “very skilful litigator” and “a forward-looking lawyer” and is highlighted for her “pioneering mediation expertise in the field of business and human rights”. Chambers Global 2020 described her as “very good at explaining and joining up the dots to help clients see the bigger picture” and noted “so much admiration for her unflappability”.

She is one of only a few lawyers to combine experience on complex and high-profile group litigation with advising on complaints to non-judicial mechanisms, such as OECD National Contact points, UN Special Procedures mandates and private, sector-based accountability mechanisms. She also has experience drafting and developing novel mechanisms in this field. Sarah uses this experience to advise clients on managing liability and disputes risks in the context of compliance and regulatory advice and works with clients across several sectors on related risk management, governance and crisis management in corporate transactions, commercial contracts, project development and financing.

Sarah is a co-creator with Legal Innovation for Sustainable Investments (LISI), focusing on stakeholder management issues within impact investment. She was shortlisted for the Chambers Diversity and Inclusion Europe Awards 2019.

Patrick is a trainee solicitor at Slaughter and May, having started his training contract in September 2021 after completing his LLB and PhD at the University of Edinburgh. During his training contract Patrick has become involved in a range of ESG work across his pensions, employment, incentives and corporate seats. This has included, for example, assisting in the preparation of advice and guidance on the specific climate-related disclosure obligations of pension schemes and large corporates and considering how the ESG-related obligations of businesses are enforced through a range of regulatory frameworks.

Within the group, Patrick’s general area of focus is the intersection between the rapidly developing fields of ESG and commercial technology. Particular areas of interest include the application of existing and forthcoming disclosure regimes to technology businesses, the growing importance of ‘greenwashing’ as a test of sustainability related claims, and the use of litigation to enforce compliance by a business with its ESG obligations and commitments.

Alessandro is Deputy General Counsel and Group Data Protection Officer at Colt, a Fidelity-owned network and data centre services company active in more than 30 countries globally. He is qualified in England, Ireland, and Italy; is a Chartered Governance Professional (ACG), and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E).  Alessandro has extensive experience in the high-tech space, with roles at Hexagon (world leader in design, measurement and visualisation technologies), the European Space Agency, and Interoute Communications, now GTT. He attended Rome University “La Sapienza”, the University of Law, and the Hague Academy of International Law.

In 2015 he was awarded Country Representative of the Year for the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC, the world’s largest association of in-house lawyers). In 2019 Alessandro was recognised by Legal500 as Data Protection Individual of the Year. Since 2012, he serves on the Law Society Technology and Law Committee, which provides guidance on the impact of new technologies on the legal profession. He is a UK Council Member for CLOC, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium.

Anna is a trainee solicitor at Bristows LLP. Before starting her training contract in August 2023, she completed her BSc in Materials Chemistry at the University of St Andrews. Anna has prior experience in ESG, having project managed an ESG client listening project in a previous role. This furthered her interest in the incorporation of ESG considerations and technology solutions into business strategy to help deliver a positive change.

Ruth acts in and advises on a variety of environmental and commercial law cases. She is an editor of the Sweet & Maxwell Environmental Law Bulletins and has co-authored, with Nigel Pleming QC, the chapter on Climate Change Litigation in the UK in the recently published book ‘Climate Change Litigation: Global Perspectives’. She was previously a researcher at the Law Commission and a Judicial Assistant to Lady Arden and Lord Kitchin at the Supreme Court.

Francesca is Senior Legal Counsel in the Data Protection, Technology and Procurement team at Cambridge University Press & Assessment. She has a strong general commercial background and knowledge of end-to-end supply chain issues, international distribution and e-commerce and digital products.

Francesca is interested in becoming empowered to deliver real change for her organisation and others in terms of Sustainability and she is currently working on implementing climate drafting into her organisation’s templates.

Ankit Kapoor is a Graduate Solicitor (India) at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, having started his training contract in February 2024 after completing his BA LLB (Hons) at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and the University of Groningen. He is extremely interested in the TMT and ESG sectors, having worked across stakeholders – think-tanks, policymakers, academics, law firms, tech companies, startups, and litigators – in India, England, Netherlands, and Scotland.