Our Director Paul Gill established Environmentally Sustainable Systems in 1995 to provide ecological survey, biodiversity enhancement, sustainability and climate change consultancy and advice for developers, businesses, government, and conservation agencies. He has helped develop 2.73GW of offshore wind farms and 380MW of onshore wind farms, projects with the capacity to substantially reduce carbon emissions, while improving the evidence base for the ecological effects of wind farms. Paul has undertaken large and fine scale surveys and ecological impact assessments of birds, mammals and vegetation on hundreds of sustainable development and renewable energy sites, as well as surveying seabirds and marine mammals from boats, and assessing and/or monitoring ecological impacts on nineteen offshore wind farm sites.

He has helped the conservation agency Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot) review evidence and develop methods for ornithological assessment at wind farm sites, and trialled and improved their guidance on mountain and moorland habitat impact assessment using indicators, while undertaking National Vegetation Classification surveys over large areas of the Cairngorms National Park. Paul has an MSc in Environmental Technology (specialising in Ecological Management) from Imperial College London, a BA in Zoology from Oxford University, and the Association for Project Management (APM) Project Management Qualification (PMQ). He has been a full member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management since 2008.

Paul has worked for the University of Stirling as part of a team contracted by government to develop sustainable development indicators to measure the sustainability of Scotland’s economy, written sustainable development guidance for the UK Government Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and advised three Scottish councils on their sustainability and environmental policies. Earlier in his career, he worked as environmental advisor to a US construction firm in Arizona, and spent four seasons surveying birds on Shetland, throughout Scotland and in northern England for RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology and UK Government conservation agencies, for who he has also created and managed a biodiversity inventory database for monitoring the effects of climate change on 13 UK Biosphere Reserves. He had previously published papers on a successful African antelope reintroduction programme, policy responses to the UK Government’s first Climate Change Policy for Friends of the Earth Scotland, and on owls for the Forestry Commission Wildlife & Conservation Research Branch.

Paul designed the logo for Environmentally Sustainable Systems and ESS Eco logy, following the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, to illustrate that our consultancy services focus on interactions between environment, economy and society, and the overlaps between the three Earth Summit agreements: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (that gave rise to the 2015 Paris Agreement target of 1.5° post-industrial global warming), the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (which underpins all biodiversity and nature conservation legislation), and the UN Declaration on Environment & Development (which led to the UN Sustainable Development Goals) . Paul works on resolving the conflicts and building the synergies between the climate emergency, the biodiversity crisis, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Environmentally Sustainable Systems (trading as ESS Training, ESS Solutions & ESS Ecology)