Speakers

Dr Steven Smith is a Technical Director at AECOM with over 15 years’ experience in environment and sustainable development with a specialism in natural capital and ecosystem services.  He has completed numerous high profile projects, including: assessing the scope for developing forest-based payments for ecosystem services (PES) in the Ethiopian Highlands (for the Global Green Growth Institute); investigating the impacts of climate change on the UK's natural capital assets (for the Committee on Climate Change); exploring the attitudes and motivations of woodland owners and farmers towards woodland management and woodland creation (for Defra/Forestry Commission England); piloting the measurement of social and environmental returns from woodland creation (for the Forestry Commission); development of the UK Government's Best Practice Guide on PES (for Defra); providing economic evidence, analysis and appraisal for the Independent Panel on Forestry (for Defra); and barriers and opportunities to the use of PES in England (for Defra).  Steven was project director for AECOM and Cambridge Econometric's recent work for WWF-UK to develop a natural capital stress test for the UK.