Celebrating one year at OG with our Legal Assistant, Olivia

Since joining OG one year ago as a Legal Assistant, Olivia has been integral to the legal team’s groundbreaking work in the field of aviation. Here she reflects on her first year in the role.

Olivia out and about on our summer away day foraging on Hampstead Heath.

What drew you to work at OG? 

Short backstory: I came to Opportunity Green through Charityworks, a year long fellowship which places graduates in entry-level roles in the charity sector. When I received the job description from Opportunity Green what really stood out to me was the strong emphasis on employee wellbeing, something I’m not sure I would have valued so highly before joining OG. 

My excitement for the role grew tenfold once I googled Opportunity Green and saw the impressive work being carried out by such a young organisation, as well as reading about the uber talented people behind the operation. I immediately wanted a spot on the ‘Our team’ page!

I was working as a research assistant under a fixed term contract at the time, and definitely felt a sense of disillusionment as to how I could effect change in the climate space. I remember thinking the chance to be a fully-fledged member of a team working towards such an ambitious, but very necessary, vision focused on justice and equity couldn’t be a better place to start. 

What has changed since you started? 

I was the 11th hire at OG and we’re soon to be 22 humans strong! (23 including Roo, our Chief Security Officer). It’s been great to see OG develop with each new team member and correspondingly, it has meant my role has changed over the year too. 

As an assistant, I joined the small but certainly mighty admin team of two. Our team really took shape with the hire of Gill, our fantastic COO and soon we comprised a team of five. Most recently Beatrice joined as an Operations Assistant which is a bittersweet moment; I’ll largely leave the world of tech support and recruitment admin behind, but I’m very excited to dedicate this time to legal project work and continue to develop our aviation work over the next year. 

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

The legal team has built out its public international law workstream over the last year and I feel very proud to be a part of that. To date, international shipping and aviation emissions have been poorly regulated meaning they’ve been left to grow as highly polluting sectors and decarbonisation efforts have been low. Through submissions to international courts, we’ve targeted this inaction by clarifying States’ obligations to address these emissions under international law. Being the only organisation to do this in ongoing climate proceedings underscores our strategic approach as a legal team, and why our niche focus is vital in fighting the climate crisis. 

As part of this workstream I went to Hamburg for the reading of the ITLOS advisory opinion. While I was there I turned my hand to on the ground reporting in an OG Twitter/X takeover which enormously increased my appreciation for the comms craft in the process. I’ll be doing the same for the similar proceedings at the International Court of Justice in December so stay tuned! (See, I’m getting the hang of it.) 

I’m proud of our EDI Committee: my fantastic colleagues have hosted documentary discussions for Pride Month and parenting in the workplace to name a few, we’ve actively worked on making our hiring process more inclusive and received lots of positive feedback on this, and we’ve driven internal policy updates to be in line with best practice. Employee wellbeing is at the centre of OG and I’m particularly proud that our progressive policies on parental leave, EDI and flexible working reflect this. 

I’m also proud of graduating the Charityworks scheme. During this time I coached a peer, expanded my network and wrote a report on how litigation can leverage campaigning for climate action, which I exhibited at a showcase and will be presenting to the legal and comms team in the coming weeks. Reflecting on all these experiences I’ve realised how much my confidence has grown along the way, so I’m proud of that too.   

What inspires you about what you’re working on? 

Passionate and wonderful colleagues at the top of their game who champion you everyday – cringy but true. 

On a different note I’ve found an unlikely source of inspiration from LinkedIn. It still feels surreal that a blog I wrote on the mounting legal pressure to decarbonise shipping and aviation induced a disgruntled comment from an employee at the International Civil Aviation Organization. Getting into online spats aside (not my thing), these little indicators of impact spur you on to drive the legal change that’s needed to tackle these difficult sectors.  

Being part of a team that uses the law to hold those responsible for the climate crisis accountable is pretty inspirational too.

What are you looking forward to in the coming year? 

As ever, the legal team is expanding and I’m excited to welcome two more members who are exploring new, and equally challenging, sectors. Oh, and welcoming Carly back from maternity leave! 

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