Consultant
Maya de Souza is a Consultant in the Climate, Environment & Sustainability sector at CSTEP.
She completed her undergraduate degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University. After a year in India, working with the Refugee Studies Programme, she studied law and practised as a lawyer for several years, mainly in employment and housing law. She completed her LLM (with distinction) from the University of London, and thereafter joined the government, initially working as a lawyer in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and later as a policymaker.
Prior to joining CSTEP, Maya was the Director, Circular Economy (co-director of the Environment Team) at Business in the Community–UK, part of the Prince of Wales Responsible Business Network. Before this, she led Defra’s Resource Efficiency & Waste Prevention Team, developing programmes and policies across key sectors, bringing different government departments together to embed circular economy policy into climate, nature, and resource security policy, and leading on international engagement including through the G7 and G20.
Maya also worked for several years in Hong Kong, heading the Policy & Research team at the Business Environment Council, where she spearheaded a Low-Carbon Hong Kong initiative with Hong Kong’s leading businesses, as well as leading projects on energy efficiency, transport, and waste.
Her areas of interest include resource efficiency, circular economy, and waste policy, as well as climate policy and nature-based solutions for mitigation and resilience. Maya is also interested in urban planning, transport and air quality, in particular because of her time as a local councillor in the London Borough of Camden.
