Environmental Law Seminar Series report: There and Back Again: A 15 Year Journey in Environment and Sustainability

Kent Law School alumnus Rufus Howard, now a Director of Sustainable Development at Royal Haskoning DHV, returned to Kent to deliver a talk on ‘There and Back Again: A 15 Year Journey in Environment and Sustainability’ for LLM students, as part of the Law School’s 2018/19 LLM Environmental Law Seminar Series.

Rufus is a leading professional in environmental impact assessment and sustainability. He has developed his experience over 15 years working on a range of major infrastructure projects across energy transmission, renewable energy, flood defence, aviation and industry. His worked has focused on providing project direction, stakeholder negotiation and expert technical advice regarding project initiation, feasibility, development, innovation and due diligence.

As part of his talk, Rufus reflected on his academic training, research and working experience, including undertaking national and international applied research, innovation projects and consultancy for organisations such as the World Bank, National Grid, Statkraft, The Crown Estate, Environment Agency and Kent Nature Partnership. He addressed interesting topics on Environmental and Social Due Diligence (EDD) and Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), identifying particular considerations and tasks to be addressed  in development project work. He used the case of the Dogger Bank wind farm development, the largest offshore wind project in the world, as an example to show complexity and difficulty that he has faced as an environmental consultant.

Overall, the discussion was very insightful and inspiring to attendees on the career of environmental consultancy. It provided an informative and practical knowledge in environmental due diligence which is a highly significant component of the due diligence undertaken in support of any business.

This month’s seminar was organised for LLM students by the student committee comprising Eva Vougdis, Vipassri Niyompruksa and Zainab Ibrahim-Kazaure.


Environmental law at Kent

Environmental law is a recognised and long-established area of teaching and research expertise at Kent Law School. Academics, including Professor William Howarth and Dr Martin Hedemann-Robinson, are engaged in research across a number of areas of environmental law, with research spanning international, European and national law and policy. The Law School’s Environmental Law Seminar Series has been designed specifically for LLM (Master’s in Law) students with an interest in the environmental law modules offered at Kent.

Kent LLM students can graduate on the International Environmental Law and Policy pathway by (i) opting to study at least three (out of six) modules from those associated with the pathway of their choice and by (ii) focusing the topic of their dissertation on their chosen pathway. Students can also study environmental law in combination with other areas offered by the Law School.

A record of previous talks held as part of the Law School Environmental Law Seminar Series is available on our news blog.