Celebrating one year at OG with our Legal Officer, Isabela

6 Feb

Since joining OG one year ago as a Legal Officer, Isa has been integral to our legal action, from shedding light on cruise companies’ greenwashing practices to developing our legal challenge to the EU Commission Taxonomy. Here she reflects on her first year in the role.

What drew you to work at OG?

At the time, I was researching climate laws and litigation, and when I read the job ad, I got very excited about the prospect of putting my research experience into practice with a young (and female led!) civil society organisation.

I also really believed in Opportunity Green’s holistic approach of using law, economics, and policy to tackle the climate crisis (now having turned into a fully-fledged theory of change). But perhaps what resonated most with me, and what has shown to be true throughout the past year, was Opportunity Green’s values and the ongoing efforts to make it just a really nice place to work.

What has changed since you started?

I joined Opportunity Green when it was just a five-woman team. A year later, and our team is about to comprise 16 employees – including some wonderful men!

Besides our growth, many projects were launched in the past year, but I’d like to talk about the way in which our internal governance has shaped; from setting up various committees, such as the DEI Committee, to transitioning to a permanent four-day working week. Opportunity Green also changed its Parental Policy from 12 weeks to 26 weeks of full pay, with the right to take a full year off from work. Employee wellbeing has really been at the heart of all of these developments.

It's safe to say that having grown up in Switzerland (which, for the ones who don’t know, is a tad more conventional and tends to lag behind with such initiatives) I found these commitments and ongoing efforts to be particularly inspiring.

What are you most proud of being involved in since you joined?

Next to Roo, our office dog, now tolerating my cuddles from time to time and getting the whole team to taste Swiss pralines (from Sprüngli, of course), I am really proud of the legal work our team’s done in the shipping sector:

Exposing the cruise industry’s narrative around liquefied natural gas (LNG);
Challenging the EU’s new investment rules which label large-scale investments into the fuel in shipping as “green”; and,
Clarifying States’ obligations under international law to mitigate emissions from international shipping.

Being a young organisation means that a lot of our work happens behind the scenes and involves capacity building: I’m perhaps most proud of our internal work developing legal action strategies across the shipping industry.

What inspires you about what you’re working on?

Despite global shipping being a major polluter in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it remains a sector that is poorly regulated; in fact, its climate action record has been rated “highly insufficient” to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement.

While there are a number of fantastic civil society organisations working on policy interventions to change that (do check out the work of our International Shipping Policy team and the SASHA Coalition), legal interventions which have the potential to drive the maritime energy transition remain largely underexplored. All the more reason to get to it!

*Isa (with Nuala, Hannah & Sabrina) at our away day at Freightliners City Farm*

What are you looking forward to in the coming year?

I’m looking forward to seeing our legal team expand, to new projects being launched and to more fun team outings (possibly even involving climbing? One can dream…).

Inspired to come and work at Opportunity Green? Keep an eye on our vacancies page and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

You might also like...