Rachel Richardson Head of ESG
Rachel is head of ESG at Macfarlanes. She provides strategic support on a wide range of ESG issues, in particular in the area of sustainable finance.
Rachel has oversight of the ESG practice at the firm and is committed to helping support our clients’ sustainability goals. In addition, she is driving change within the firm to ensure that we operate in a way that has a more positive impact on our stakeholders and community.
She is a technical expert in various areas of ESG, providing assistance to clients on ongoing reporting requirements, including TCFD reporting, UN PRI reporting, SFDR annual reporting, UK Stewardship code reporting and other ongoing reporting requirements.
From a transactional perspective, Rachel performs ESG due diligence on M&A transactions and assists on the legal aspects of IPOs as well as advising on the ESG aspects of investor negotiation.
She is a founding member of the firm’s ESG working group and regularly works closely with the Lawtech team at Macfarlanes on the intersection of ESG and tech.
She leads on cross practice area ESG advice, including greenwashing risk analysis, ESG policy change and B-Corp accreditation.
Rachel holds a number of positions on ESG committees with relevant industry body working group and is a frequent speaker on ESG at industry conferences.
Rachel holds the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership certificate in sustainable finance. She has also been acknowledged as a Green Ambassador in The Legal 500 Green Guide: United Kingdom 2025.
Rachel is chair of the ESG steering committee which comprises leaders across the firm. Prior to taking on her role in May 2022, Rachel had 12 years’ experience as a finance lawyer at the firm, spending three years as head of banking & finance policy in the finance team at Macfarlanes.
Rachel advised debt funds, private equity sponsors and other financial institutions on a wide range of financing transactions with a focus on all aspects of leveraged and acquisition finance transactions, acting for both the firm’s lender-side and borrower-side clients. She also advised on fund finance and specialty finance issues, before advising solely on ESG matters.
Rachel’s experience includes a secondment to a global financial institution during which time she advised on a broad range of transactions.