Introduction - Watch video on YouTube

Jonathon Porritt is Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development. In addition, he is Co-Director of The Prince of Wales’s Business and Environment Programme which runs Seminars for senior executives around the world. He is a Non-Executive Director of Wessex Water, and of Willmott Dixon Holdings. He is a Trustee of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, and is involved in the work of many NGOs and charities as Patron, Chair or Special Adviser.

He was formerly Director of Friends of the Earth (1984—90); co-chair of the Green Party (1980—83) of which he is still a member; chairman of UNED-UK (1993—96); chairman of Sustainability South West, the South West Round Table for Sustainable Development (1999—2001); a Trustee of WWF UK (1991—2005), a member of the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency (1999—2008).

He stood down as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in July 2009 after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers.

His latest books are Capitalism As If The World Matters (Earthscan, revised 2007), Globalism & Regionalism (Black Dog 2008) and Living Within Our Means (Forum for the Future 2009). Jonathon received a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.

Transcription of keynote address by Hank Dittmar:
"Building: A new green economy" [168 Kb]

Presentation slides:
"The role of building in a new green economy" by Hank Dittmar
[9.7 Mb] - This version contains a video and requires Adobe Acrobat v6 or above
[4.5 Mb] - Version with no video

Introduction: Part 1 of 2 - Watch video on YouTube

Introduction: Part 2 of 2 - Watch video on YouTube

Hank Dittmar has been Chief Executive of The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment since January 2005. Until 2008, Mr. Dittmar was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Congress for the New Urbanism, an international membership organization that promotes the creation and restoration of compact, walkable, mixed-use cities, towns and neighbourhoods and remains on its board.

Mr. Dittmar has over twenty years of progressively responsible international experience in urban design and development and urban and transport policy. Prior to assuming the post with The Prince’s Foundation, Mr. Dittmar was President and CEO of Reconnecting America and was appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton to the White House Advisory Committee on Transportation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the President’s Council on Sustainable Development’s Metropolitan Working Group, which he served as Chair. He is a Senior Research Associate at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment and was outstanding Alumnus of the Graduate School of the University of Texas in 2008.

Tim Jackson - Watch video on YouTube

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development in the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey and author of the groundbreaking book Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. His current research includes consumer behaviour, sustainable energy systems, ecological economics and environmental philosophy. In the last twelve years he has pioneered the development of an ‘adjusted’ measure of economic growth — a ‘green GDP’ — for the UK.

In 1988 he pioneered a least-cost approach to carbon abatement for Friends of the Earth and co-authored (with Nic Marks) the first Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare for the UK. He has continued to work with the New Economics Foundation and others on measures of sustainable wellbeing at national and regional level. In addition to his academic work, Tim is a professional playwright with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC.

David orr - Watch video on YouTube

Download the presentation by David Orr [1.7 Mb]

David Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics. He is the recipient of five honorary degrees including The Millennium Leadership Award from Global Green, the Bioneers Award, and the National Wildlife Federation Leadership Award. He has served as a Trustee for organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

Recent projects include a two-year $US 2.2 million collaborative project to define a 100 days climate action plan for the Obama administration, and a project with legal scholars across the U.S. to define the legal rights of posterity in cases where the actions of the present generation might deprive posterity of “life, liberty, and property.” He is the author of forthcoming Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse.

Rob Hopkins - Watch video on YouTube

Rob Hopkins is co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. He set up the first 2-year full-time permaculture course in the world as well as coordinated the first eco-village development.

His books include Energy Descent Pathways; and most recently The Transition Handbook: from oil dependence to local resilience, which was voted the 5th most popular book taken on holiday by UK MPs during the summer of 2008.

He is the winner of the 2008 Schumacher Award, an Ashoka Fellow, is a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, a Trustee of the Soil Association, and was named by the Independent as one of the UK’s top 100 environmentalists.

Stuart Brand - Watch video on YouTube

Download the presentation by Stuart Brand [1.4 Mb]

Stewart Brand is founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, and co-founder of the Well and the Long Now Foundation. One of his early accomplishments was helping to persuade NASA to release the first photo of the Earth from space. The photo became the cover for his Whole Earth Catalogue. His notable publications include The Media Lab; Inventing the Future at MIT; How Buildings Learn; The Clock of the Long Now: Time & Responsibility.

Stewart is in the UK to promote his latest book — Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.