Our Staff

Becky Kenton-Lake

Coalition Manager

Becky coordinates coalition activities, working closely with members to plan and implement campaigns and advocacy work.

Before living in Edinburgh and working at Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, Becky spent several years working on waste and recycling campaigns at local authorities in Oxfordshire and lived on a narrowboat. Becky is on the council of the Climate Justice Coalition.

Fiona Buchanan

Campaigns Coordinator

Fiona works with our members to deliver SCCS’s new public engagement strategy, ensuring that our campaigns are impactful, engaging and collaborative.

Fiona has worked for over 15 years on climate and gender justice in a variety of advocacy and campaigns roles (most recently with WWF and Christian Aid), and particularly loves working with national and international coalitions and campaigners to design campaigns that create meaningful change.

Our Board

SCCS is governed by a Board, members of which are elected by our coalition members. Our current board members are:

Mike Robinson

Chair

Mike was one of the founders of SCCS in 2006 and has been Chief Executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society since 2008. Through this role – and over the course of the last 25 years – Mike has been instrumental in informing policy through joined-up, collaborative action on sustainability and climate change.

Mike is an advisor to Government and trustee on several boards, mostly in the spheres of education, agriculture and transport. Amongst others, Mike sits on the Board of Transform Scotland and is Chair of Perth City Development Board, aiming to make Perth the most sustainable small city in Europe.

Simon Anderson

Simon works at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), an independent policy research institute, on monitoring and evaluation for learning, gender equality and issues of sustainable development universality. He is co-chair of IIED’s gender equality champions network. Through his work, Simon is exploring how to use realist approaches to learning at the interfaces of gender equality and universality. In addition, Simon has worked as a researcher and as a research manager for DFID, Wye College London University and the Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico.

Mary Church

Mary is Senior Campaigner at the Centre for International Environmental Law, where her work focuses on the increasing threat posed by highly speculative solar and marine geoengineering technologies. Prior to taking up this role she was Head of Campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, where she worked to advance environmental justice, acting to address global challenges through local and national opportunities. Working with frontline communities, she led FoES’s successful campaign to stop fracking. Mary co-founded the Just Transition Partnership which has forged a ground-breaking and fruitful alliance between trade unions and the climate movement, and the Climate Justice Coalition which brought together UK and global movements around COP26. Mary is a founding member and current board member of ERCS and was previously a trustee at Changeworks.

Angus Hardie

Although originally trained in accountancy and then social work, Angus’ principle interest is community work.  He spent 20 years helping to establish and support community organisations in and around the peripheral housing schemes of Edinburgh before moving to establish the national umbrella body for development trusts (DTA Scotland).  In 2011, he initiated the Scottish Community Alliance – a broad coalition of the major community based networks operating in Scotland – with the aim of promoting the interests of the community sector more widely and encouraging cross-sector collaboration.

 

 

Jamie Livingstone

Jamie has been Head of Oxfam Scotland since 2013 having joined as Campaigns & Communications Manager in 2011. He was previously a print and broadcast journalist, including Political Correspondent on STV News. He currently oversees Oxfam’s policy, campaigns and communications in Scotland. Jamie is a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee in Scotland and a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Based in Edinburgh, he became a Director of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland in 2014.

 

 

 

Liz Murray

Liz has been head of Scottish campaigns for social justice campaign organisation Global Justice Now since 2008. She previously worked for Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth Scotland and for the Green group of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. Liz has been part of the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland coalition since 2005, playing a part in the campaign around both of Scotland’s climate change acts. Liz currently leads Global Justice Now’s campaign for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, to ensure a global exit plan from fossil fuels, working in collaboration with climate justice campaigners around the world and particularly the Global South. Liz is also a board member of Nourish Scotland.

Lexi Parfitt

Lexi is Director of Campaigns and Communications at Water Witness. She has worked across the third sector for the last 15 years, from leading campaigns on climate change at WWF Scotland and tax justice with SCIAF, to coordinating policy and public affairs work on the impacts of austerity with SAMH. Lexi has worked with SCCS since its earliest days, including on the 2009 Scottish Climate Act and the Climate Justice Fund, joining the board in 2020. She has a masters in Gender, Rights and Development from the University of Glasgow and was previously on the board of the Scottish International Development Alliance (then NIDOS).

Jason Rose

Jason leads the development and delivery of RSPB Scotland’s policy campaigns, closely tracking what’s happening with nature and climate at Holyrood and Westminster.

Jason has worked in media and PR since the 1990s, first as a radio reporter, often covering environmental issues, then in a senior comms role at Scottish Water, followed by Head of Media for the Scottish Greens in the Scottish Parliament, advising on messaging and tactics through six elections and two referendums. He also campaigned at community level on issues such as fracking and air pollution.

Along the way he founded and directed a book festival, organised a community cinema and these days he chairs a community nature reserve group (Friends of Musselburgh Links) and sits on the board of an outdoor play charity (East Lothian Play Association).

Kirstie Shirra

Kirstie has worked on environmental justice and international development issues for over 20 years. With Friends of the Earth Scotland, she campaigned for the introduction of a strong Freedom of Information Act and and pushed for greater action on energy efficiency. As head of Global Justice Now in Scotland, she focussed on Scotland’s first Climate Change Act as well as activities around Make Poverty History. Since 2009, Kirstie has been freelance, aiding a number of organisations and networks including WWF Scotland, Scotland’s International Development Alliance (formerly NIDOS), the Sheila McKechnie Foundation and BAFTA albert with campaign strategy, delivery and facilitation.

Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson is Advocacy Manager at the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF), the official aid and development organisation of the Catholic Church in Scotland, and a member of Caritas Internationalis. Ben has been involved with SCCS since 2017, working closely on Scotland’s 2019 Climate Change Act and on preparations for COP26 in Glasgow. Ben has a particular interest in international climate finance, especially Loss & Damage, and has been following UN climate negotiations since COP23. He is also a board member of Scotland’s International Development Alliance.