Kate Hiseman

Kate has 30 years' experience of working and teaching in the fields of sustainability, environment, and ecology. She is a fully qualified teacher (PGDE), a City & Guilds Assessor, and holds full professional membership of both the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) for 20 years.

Kate is a keen kayaker - often seen juggling water survey and ecology equipment at the same time... as a result she is also a keen swimmer. She supports two working cocker spaniels (aka horizon dogs) and a disinterested cat.

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Background

Kate brings experience and expertise of working within academia, local authority, statutory government agencies, consultancies (large and small), and third sector organisations.

She has first-hand knowledge of tackling environmental and sustainability issues across a range of sectors, particularly land use and land use change, agri-food, local policy, community and charity, education, business, and spatial planning.

Kate is passionate about delivering sustainability, biodiversity, and climate solutions both at policy and practice level, in particular working with communities, businesses, and land owners. She is the founder of a sustainability consultancy and charity.

Her portfolio of projects includes:

Sustainability

• Sustainability Strategy and Action Plans for educational institutions, local authorities, farm estates, communities, and regeneration bodies
• Sustainability Appraisals, Sustainability Assessments, Environmental Impact Assessments for strategic and development planning
• BREEAM Sustainability Assessor – large scale development
• Contributed to ISO 14001 and Global Reporting Initiative reports for range of businesses (international to SME)
• Footprinting and sustainability solutions for individuals, business, and landowners
• Trainer/ Mentor for IEMA and Natural England in EIA and SEA
• Founded community sustainability group in ex coalfield area
• Founder of Gaia Society – student society

Environment, Carbon, Climate

• Carbon sequestration and offsetting in agri-environmental landscapes
• Technical advisor for the Rutland Climate Action Network
• Energy and Carbon Strategy for local authority
• Provided advice to Natural England on climate change impacts and adaptation assessment.
• Renewable energy technical support for large scale sustainable regeneration project (biomass, wind)
• Environmental and energy baseline audits of large multi-site educational institute
• Large scale community domestic energy audits and carbon reduction campaign
• Founded community kerbside waste recycling charity Recycling Ollerton and Boughton
• Researched waste recycling opportunities for local authority
• Conducted food miles and CO2 reduction strategies for local authority
• Development of statutory standing advice relating to wind turbine planning applications for Natural England

Biodiversity, Ecosystems, Natural Capital, Nature Based Solutions

• Founded the Sustainable Land Trust charity which combines sustainable land use, ecosystem service approaches, health and wellbeing.
• Professional consultant ecologist with a portfolio spanning over 75 individual ecological assessments (field surveys, impact assessment, mitigation/avoidance, net gain, design, management and monitoring (habitats, species, protected species))
• Professional advisor in rural land use environmental schemes, including Countryside Stewardship, green infrastructure, wildlife corridors, working on large rural farms and country estates.
• Natural capital assessments for agri-environmental landscapes
• Baseline ecological surveys, management plans and strategic planning and design of biodiverse landscapes for developers, landowners, regeneration bodies
• Advisor for natural capital and nature based solutions to address biodiversity loss, flooding and the impacts of climate change in agricultural landscapes
• Supported communities to achieve biodiversity targets through training, professional advice, advocacy by creating biodiversity action groups
• Co-creator of Sherwood 2080 project for Natural England to forecast changes in the landscape and ecological profile of the area under different climate change scenarios 
• Development of ecological net gain strategies and actions

Research interests

PhD title: Natural capital and its role in improving eco-agri-land environments at different spatial scales in the UK 
Kate's background in sustainable rural land use matters has informed her PhD research which focuses on the potential for simplified natural capital approaches to address climate and ecosystem service crisis in rural environments in the UK.

Natural capital is a new approach to addressing some of our key sustainability issues by promoting the role that nature plays in supporting human populations. 

Natural capital is defined as the world’s stocks of natural assets (biodiversity, soil air, water, geology). Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect contributions that nature provides to support human wellbeing and quality of life.

These include provisioning services (e.g. food, water, raw materials, medicine), regulating services (e.g. waste water treatment, pollution control, pollination, air quality, carbon sequestration, hazard reduction), supporting services (nutrient cycling, evolution (species), soil formation, spatial structure (habitats), primary production), and cultural services (e.g. recreation and ecotourism, aesthetics and inspiration, spiritual and religious, tradition and folklore, education, sense of place, heritage).

These services are linked to human wellbeing by providing security, health, freedom of choice and action, and provides the basic materials for humans to live a good life. 

Existing frameworks and tools remain at the academic level, with some of them slowly filtering into national policy evaluation. At the landowner level, there are few tools that are actually used to make decisions about how to add environmental, social and economic value which are simple to use by the non-specialist.  
Kate's research is to create a co-produced holistic conceptual model, which will include a range of relevant ecosystem service tools to address the most significant issues relating to biodiversity loss, climate change and environmental damage.

This will involve development and testing frameworks and tools at different spatial scales including farm estate, land parcel, ecological network, and catchment level to ensure that impacts pathways and boundaries are identified, and the outcomes clearly identified. 

Areas of research supervision

• Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services
• Ecology and Conservation
• Sustainable Land Management
• Sustainable Spatial Planning
• Sustainable Communities
• Environmental Management for SME’s

Teaching

• FdSc Environmental Management
• BSc (Hons) Environmental Management
• BSc Agri-Food Technology

Qualifications

• HND Rural Land Management
• MSc Energy & Sustainability
• PhD Natural Sciences (In progress)

Memberships, editorial boards

• Full Member: Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM)
• Full Member: Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA)

Media experience

• BBC Radio Wales and BBC News at 10 – interview while working with Sir Anthony Hopkins on Snowden to commemorate £1m donation to purchase the mountain for the National Trust – showed him how to restore dry stone walls and protect upland landscapes
• BBC Countryfile – Interviewed as potential presenter
• BBC East Midlands Today – interviewed as part of team working on rare species on the Grantham Canal 
• BBC Radio Lincolnshire – interview on coastal erosion
• BBC Radio Lincolnshire – interview on sustainability at Lincoln University