James Thornton wins Charity Leader Of The Year

James Thornton, Founding CEO of ClientEarth, wins Charity Leader Of The Year 2020 at The Charity Times Awards.

James started ClientEarth from the corner of his kitchen nearly fifteen years ago.

In the years since, much has happened, all of it demonstrating the power of the law to protect people and nature. With James at the helm, our staff has grown to 200, with offices in London, Brussels, Berlin, Warsaw and Beijing.

What we have accomplished so far is based on two things: the talent and the passion of the team that has joined me in this work. Of all our triumphs, the team I lead is the most awe-inspiring success. Thank you, this win is for you all.

As we celebrate his Charity Leader of the Year win, we also laud some examples of our success over the years:

• We’ve stopped a generation of new coal power plants in Europe, and are closing existing plants down.
• We're working to reduce plastics use and exposure to dangerous chemicals.
• We're working in five African countries with NGOs and local experts, to protect the rights of people who depend on forests.
• We're protecting threatened animals across Europe.
• We’ve won cases to clean up our air, first in the UK, now across Europe.
• We helped write the EU fisheries law. Now we’re enforcing it—so there will be fish in the sea for future generations.
• We’ve protected the most important forest in Europe—Poland’s Bialowieza—from illegal logging.
• In China, we’ve trained more than 1500 environmental judges and prosecutors. They have brought more than 100,000 legal challenges against polluting companies and government actors who were not upholding the law.

Congratulations to all who won and were shortlisted this year at The Charity Times Awards 2020. We’d also like to thank the team at Charity Times for all the work they do.

And thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way. Please keep supporting us. Our mission is to save civilization, and we have no doubt we will succeed, if we all work together.

Join James and other leading experts on 23^rd of September at the online opening of The Earth Convention. James will be discussing the twin crises of Covid-19 and climate change and how to ensure a green recovery.