Committee on Climate Change

Mark Edwards is one of the few environmental communicators to have personally witnessed the global issues that are defining the 21st century. Assignments for magazines, NGOs and United Nations agencies have taken him to over 150 countries. One of the most widely published photographers in the world; his pictures are collected and exhibited by museums and art galleries in Europe and the US and by private collectors. Hard Rain, a collaboration with Bob Dylan, is his current project. UNEP added Mark’s name to the Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1990 and the Royal Geographic Society awarded him the Cherry Kearton Medal at the Earth Summit in 1992. In 2009 The Royal Photographic Society awarded Mark and Bob Dylan the Terence Donovan Award.

Ed co-founded the construction company Urban Design Build, 20 years ago. Since then, the duo and their team of qualified home experts have renovated and restored properties throughout London. When they saw how much energy is consumed by heating and lighting, and how much waste is produced as a result of construction and renovation, they decided to create Green Power Installations. Now they install affordable, scalable green technology in residential and commercial buildings. Their innovative Retrofit Home was featured at Grand Designs Live 2011.

James Cameron is a founder and the vice chairman of low-carbon investment manager and advisor, Climate Change Capital (CCC). James is a member of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Group, a former member of the Green Investment Bank Commission, chairman of the World Economic Forum's Agenda Council on Climate Change and a member of General Electric's ecomagination board.

Prior to CCC, James spent much of his legal career working on climate change matters, including negotiating the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol as an adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States.

Joan MacNaughton is an influential figure in the energy and climate policy debate in a variety of UK, EU and international roles, Joan helped to put climate change at the center of energy policy, oversaw the energy agenda during the UK’s Presidency of the EU, led the energy work agreed at the G8 Gleneagles Summit, and Chaired the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency.

Joan now spearheads Alstom Power’s clean power advocacy, focused on reducing power generation CO2 emissions.

Q1/ What is your view on the balance between behaviour change vs. low-carbon technologies in meeting emissions reduction goals?

Both will be key. Behaviour in the broadest sense – such as how we travel, or how we use energy resources – will have to change radically. On its own, for example through energy  conservation, it won’t be enough. As long as energy use is positively correlated with GDP, and as long as global GDP and population are growing, we’ll also need to decarbonise energy use as well as production. That is where low carbon technologies come in.
 

David Hall is a Director at Behaviour Change, a social enterprise which focuses on making it easier for people to lead sustainable lives.  A former advertising strategist,  who masterminded a campaign which helped turn Skoda's fortunes around, David's morals finally got the better of him in 2006, when he joined NGO The Climate Group as International Campaign Director, and then in 2009, set up Behaviour Change with 3 colleagues from the Climate Group.  


Q1/ What is different about your approach to encouraging behaviour change?

While the academic theory of behaviour change can be useful, in our experience there are very few examples of it being successfully applied (am I the only one who is getting a bit bored with hotel towels?).  Our approach is determinedly practical; working with trusted businesses and charities who have the power to influence the behaviour of their customers and supporters 'on the ground'. Our strategies for doing this are informed by marketing techniques. We use qualitative and quantitative research to understand the barriers to a particular behaviour, before testing practical interventions and communications approaches to see how people are likely to respond to them.  Wherever possible, we look for ways to make it easier, cheaper or more appealing to take up the behaviours we are promoting, rather than telling people what to do or appealing to their better natures.

Angela is also Deputy Head of the Plant and Invertebrate Ecology Division at Rothamsted Research. She is a geneticist by training. Her research focuses on optimising the sustainable yield and composition of perennial biomass crops (especially willows) for bioenergy and biofuel production. She currently leads the Perennial Bioenergy Crops Programme (BSBEC-BioMASS), which is one of six research hubs making up the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre. In 2007, Dr Karp received the Royal Agricultural Society of England Research Medal for her work on bioenergy crops and in 2008 was awarded the Alfred-Toepfer prize for Agriculture, Forestry and Nature Protection for her research achievements in willow.
 

Q1/ How did you come to work on bioenergy crops?
When I was relocated from Rothamsted to Long Ashton Research Station in 1990 I was shown the National Willow Collection. Being a geneticist, the huge diversity of willows impressed me and the development of this crop as a renewable source of fuel to help mitigate climate change seemed to me an important endeavour.

Eliot is Director of the UK Corporate Leaders Group, which brings together leaders from some of the UK’s largest businesses, with the aim of supporting the development of new and longer term policies for tackling climate change...  

 1.    What role do you think business leaders can play in helping to tackle climate change?
There are many roles that business leaders can play – climate change is a challenge that affects all of society and if we don’t pull together to deal with it, the human, environmental and economic costs will be far greater than they need be. It is important that business leaders guide their organisations through the required economic transition and help to develop the new economic models and activities that will power green growth and encourage sustainability.

Gareth purchased Seacourt with business partner Jim in 2008 after previously serving as Marketing Director.  He is passionate about creating a business which is sustainable and believes that collectively, we have a great opportunity to drive change. Gareth has worked in all areas of printing and spent 3 years attending college for professional qualifications in all aspects of the industry and a further 2 years at Marketing college.

Seacourt has been rated as one of the top 3 environmental printers in the world, how have you achieved this?
Fourteen years ago we were a standard “dirty” printer. With the realisation of how polluting the print industry was, we decided on a change of strategy. With the purchase of a brand new high-tech waterless offset press, we immediately reduced our Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) by 98% and saved the need to use ANY water at all in the print process.
We started our formal environmental processes by gaining the ISO14001 and then progressed on to the Eco-management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), working towards our long-term objective to completely minimise our environmental footprint. It was when we entered and started winning awards and accolades that we realised that we were really achieving something important, and that our sustainable business model was highly regarded both nationally and internationally.  Since then, we have achieved Zero Waste to Landfill status, and have just won a second Queen’s Award in 4 years. 

Julian Rush was Science & Environment Correspondent of Channel 4 News for 16 years up until February 2011. He now produces his own TV and radio documentaries on a range of topics relating to science and the environment. He has a particular interest in earth sciences, climate change, sustainable development and engineering. He is also studying for an Open University degree in Geosciences.

While at Channel 4 News Julian won the Royal Television Society Home News Award two years in succession for his investigative reports on the causes of the Paddington and Hatfield rail crashes. In 2004, he was short-listed for an RTS Award for his exclusive report that exposed the government’s “dodgy dossier” on Iraq.

Wendy Pringle is the Zero Carbon Homes Development Manager at SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy).  Her role is to deliver SSE‘s low carbon homes strategy and co-ordinate the completion of  the various R&D studies at Greenwatt Way, the company’s zero carbon homes project.
Wendy has been with SSE since graduating, is a qualified accountant and has previously worked in research, finance and energy trading.

SSE is the first utility in the UK to build and monitor its own development of ten zero carbon homes to better understand the changing role of the energy supplier in a low carbon society.  To find out more please visit www.ssezerocarbonhomes.com or follow progress on Twitter @greenwattway