Jonathon Porritt

Jonathon Porritt’s background

Jonathon Porritt, Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, is a ‘veteran campaigner’ and eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development.

He is also a Non-Executive Director of Willmot Dixon Holdings, Chancellor of Keele University, and is involved in the work of many NGOs and charities as Patron, Chair or Special Advisor. See Affiliations.

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; a Trustee of WWF-UK (1991-2005) and 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 of providing high-level advice to Government Ministers.

His new book, ‘Hope in Hell’, was published in June 2020. His recent books are ‘The World We Made’ (2013), ‘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. He has also received 20 honorary degrees.

Jonathan on his book ‘Hope in Hell’:

Of all the books I’ve written since 1984, this one has been the hardest. Confronting today’s Climate Emergency is personally very painful – simply because we’ve left everything so late. You can’t just stay hopeful if the science tells us it’s already too late to stop runaway climate change – but happily, that’s not the case. Solutions abound on every front, and a new generation of climate activists (in the School Strikes movement and Extinction Rebellion) has transformed today’s climate politics. But it won’t stay ‘not too late’ much longer’. Which is what makes this the decisive decade, and what makes 2021, as we rebuild our shattered economies after the coronavirus crisis, the decisive year.