Julie is chair of the Circular Economy Task Force, launched by Green Alliance on 4 July 2012. She has been associated with Green Alliance since 1985 and was director between 1992 and 1997. 

Julie has recently completed terms as a non-executive director of both The Eden Project and the Environment Agency for England and Wales. She has worked on environmental policy for over twenty-five years and her areas of expertise include waste & resources policy, sustainable buildings and biotechnology. Presently, Julie is a visiting senior fellow at the Centre for Environmental Strategy at University of Surrey.

Her first book The secret life of stuff, was published by Vintage Books in January 2011, and other publications include Reinventing the wheel, written with Hannah Hislop and published by Green Alliance in October 2011.

She was awarded an MBE in 2001.