In the Australia Day 2023 Honours, Dr. Helen Tope was invested as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her distinguished service to environmental protection, particularly of the ozone layer, through leadership, research and policy development.

Helen has over thirty years’ experience in environmental policy development and scientific, technical, and analytical studies.

Helen is currently Principal Consultant, Montreal Protocol and Climate Change, with her business, Planet Futures, providing technical advice on the management of ozone-depleting substances and their high global warming hydrofluorocarbon replacements.

Since 1995, she has been a member of the Montreal Protocol’s Technology and Economic Assessment Panel, and co-chair of one of its Technical Options Committees, providing leadership to synthesise policy-relevant technical advice for the Montreal Protocol and other treaty bodies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, including the development of global strategies to manage the use of ozone depleting and high global warming propellants in asthma inhalers.  She is currently co-chair of  the Medical and Chemical Technical Options Committee.

She has recently worked with members of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand to develop its position statement on the environmental impact of asthma inhalers, published in Respirology,  and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Deakin University in the Office of the Executive Dean, Faculty of Health.

Helen was previously with EPA Victoria (1991-2006), where her policy development grounding included ozone layer protection, climate change, air quality, and chemicals and hazardous wastes management, with extensive experience in strategic policy, regulatory and legislative development, and public policy processes. She also managed the development of an inventory of air pollutant emissions for the city of Brisbane.