James has 20 years consultancy experience assessing and valuing biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainability issues. In 2011 he established Sustain Value, a consultancy firm that specializes in helping businesses evaluate and manage associated risks and opportunities. Particular areas of interest are natural capital accounting, evaluating 'net positive', corporate ecosystem valuation and biodiversity offsets. He is principal author of the WBCSD's 'Guide to Corporate Ecosystem Valuation' and their documents on valuing water, as well as the IPIECA 'Ecosystem Services Guidance' for the oil and gas industry. Amongst other projects, he has undertaken many Equator Bank ecosystem services assessments and developed numerous business decision-support tools that quantify and value biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainability issues. He began his career training to be an accountant with KPMG before heading up the environmental economics teams at Posford Duvivier, Jacobs/GIBB and most recently, ERM. He holds a BSc, MSc and MBA covering zoology, environmental economics and sustainability topics.