Since January 2020 Hannah has been the Sustainability Manager for VetPartners, creating and delivering the company’s first sustainability strategy. She is also responsible for environmental compliance and CSR activities.

She joined VetPartners from Yorkshire Water, where she developed the company’s framework for natural, social and human capital assessments, embedding sustainable accounting principles throughout the business. In 2018 and 2019 she served on BSI’s expert committee for the ISO14007 standard: Determining Environmental Costs and Benefits – acting as UK delegate to the international working group.

Hannah began her career as a sustainability consultant with AECOM, specialising in energy efficient design and district heating. She has a PhD in Low Carbon Technologies from the University of Leeds – during which she was seconded to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology as an EPSRC Research Fellow – and a BSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia

As sustainability rises up the agenda in society and business, many practices want to take action to become more sustainable. Protecting the environment is the right thing to do, and there’s a huge range of business benefits as well.  But with such a variety of issues to tackle, busy practices may wonder ‘where do I start?’ Hannah James is Sustainability Manager for Vet Partners, advising practices across the group on everything from how to recycle PPE, to the best thing to put in a bird feeder!  Hannah will share her experience with examples from the practices she works with, giving advice on where to start, how to adapt your approach to your specific practice, and how to keep the momentum going once you’ve implemented the ‘quick wins’.