John Box CEcol CEnv FCIEEM (rtd) Awarded the 2025 CIEEM Medal
The CIEEM Medal is the Chartered Institute’s highest accolade and is awarded annually. Recipients of the Medal must have made an outstanding and/or lifelong contribution, in relation to ecology and environmental management. The Medal is open to both CIEEM members and non-members.
John Box has made an outstanding and life-long contribution to advancing professional practice throughout his career working for the Freshwater Biological Association, the University of Sydney, Telford Development Corporation, Natural England, Wardell Armstrong, and AtkinsRéalis (formerly Atkins).
John’s belief in nature’s benefits to everyone has been a strong influence on his work including urban ecology, post-industrial ecology, statutory Local Nature Reserves, blue & green infrastructure, ecosystem services and tackling climate change. He has contributed significantly to insight, research and writing on habitat restoration, habitat creation and habitat translocation. John has given papers to national and international conferences and written over 20 blog posts and more than 130 technical and professional articles, including 23 articles in In Practice, of which over 80 articles are posted on ResearchGate.
Throughout his career John pioneered and championed technical innovation. For example, as early as 2003 he implemented the first great crested newt mitigation licences which did not include the use of exclusion fencing but instead allowed great crested newts to use the development site whilst improving long term protection and management of the habitats on site. This innovative approach has since become a mainstay used by Natural England.
Through his work John has provided encouragement, support and mentoring to younger colleagues.
Passionate about sound professional ecological practice, John has participated in many industry steering groups shaping policy and standards, most notably:
- UK Urban Ecology Forum (formerly the Urban Forum of UNESCO UK-Man & the Biosphere Committee) (1990 to present);
- Steering Group for RSPB Habitat Creation Handbook for the Minerals Industry (1999 – 2002);
- Steering Group for Highways Agency review of habitat translocation (2001 – 2003);
- Technical input to Highways Agency review of HA 210/09 Nature Conservation and IAN 130/10 Ecology and Nature Conservation: Criteria for Impact Assessment (2009-10);
- Steering Group for CIWEM report on ecosystem services ‘From Microbes to Mountains’ (2011 – 2012);
- Advisory Group and Technical Steering Group for Defra/Natural England Great Crested Newt Predictive Modelling Pilot (2014 – 2016).
As CIEEM President from 2012 to 2015, John oversaw our progression to a Chartered Institute. He has also been very influential in a number of CIEEM committees and activities, namely:
- Steering Group for the IEEM Guidelines for Ecological Impact Assessment in the United Kingdom (2006) and chair for subsequent revisions of the CIEEM Guidelines for Ecological Impact Assessment in the UK and Ireland up to the present day
- Chair, CIEEM’s Air Quality Impact Assessment Working Group (2017 – 2020)
- Chair, CIEEM’s Action 2030 Working Group from its inception in 2020 to the present day
- Chair, CIEEM’s EcIA Accreditation Working Group (2021 – 2024)
- Member, CIEEM’s Competency Framework Review Working Group (2022 – 2024)
- Chair and joint originator, CIEEM’s Good Practice Guidance for Ecological Restoration Working Group (2023 – present day).
Through his work on the Action 2030 working group in particular, John has appropriately challenged and supported the Institute to do more to move faster on our own net zero journey and to show leadership to the profession in encouraging and expecting them to, through their work, help tackle the inter-related biodiversity and climate change crises.
Since 2010 John has been a trustee of the Severn Gorge Countryside Trust. He has also been a member the Birmingham Green Commission, Chair of the Birmingham & Black Country Local Nature Partnership and trustee of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust.
John is a Fellow of CIWEM, a Fellow of the Linnean Society and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wolverhampton.
He is a role model and an inspirational figure to ecologists across the UK and beyond and is well-deserving of the 2025 CIEEM Medal.
John said the following when he found out he had been awarded the CIEEM Medal:
I am deeply honoured to receive the prestigious CIEEM Medal. My career in ecology and environmental management has been a constant delight. I would like to acknowledge and celebrate the many people who have worked together to create the wonderful and stimulating profession that we have today.