Thomas Legge

Thomas Legge is Director of the ECF’s Land-Use Programme, based in Berlin. He leads the ECF’s work on reform of EU food and agriculture policies, the protection and restoration of forests and other carbon-rich ecosystems, the reduction of bioenergy in Europe’s renewable energy system, and addressing Europe’s role in driving global greenhouse gas emissions from the land.

Thomas has been in his current role since the beginning of 2020 but has been with the ECF since 2013. From 2016 to 2019, he was the ECF’s Director of External Relations, responsible for the ECF’s fundraising and funder relations, and before that he formed part of the ECF’s team in Brussels working on climate policy.

He formed part of the energy and climate programmes at think tanks and foundations in Washington, D.C. (the German Marshall Fund of the United States), London (Chatham House) and Brussels (the Centre for European Policy Studies). He worked in an advisory capacity to the Irish government at Comhar, Ireland’s Sustainable Development Council. He also has experience in international development cooperation and in the challenges of economic and political transition from his time (2002-2005) working on democratisation, good governance and human rights in the European Commission’s delegation to Georgia and Armenia, based in Tbilisi. His holiday daydreams drift back towards the wildflower meadows and eagle-scoured peaks of the Caucasus mountains.