Jonathon Porritt, green thinker, was dubbed environmental personality of the year at the edie’s Awards for Environmental Excellence. Now in their second year, the awards were held at London’s Natural History Museum on Thursday.
From the edie news feed:
Jonathon Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future and chairman of the government-backed UK Sustainable Development Commission, became the second individual to receive an edie award for raising public awareness of environmental issues, after Al Gore picked up the award last year following the release of his climate change movie An Inconvenient Truth.
“Following in Al Gore’s footsteps, in receiving this award, is obviously a great honour,” said Porritt.
“And all the more timely given just how important it’s going to be to keep green issues right at the top of the agenda in such difficult economic conditions.
“That’s certainly going to be my principal challenge over the next few months.”
Other awards went to:
Arup – for being the consultants’ consultancy. The employer those working in the industry would most like to work for.
ERM – five of the seven best consultancy in their sector awards.
Atkins – for being voted best environmental consultancy overall, as well as the prize for offering the best advice on water & wastewater.
Awards were also made for business projects that are good for the environment, including an initiative from Coca-Cola using the popularity of league football to promote recycling, and Mitsubishi’s ambitious reinvention of building heating and cooling systems which will save over 3 million tonnes of carbon by 2016.
The awards were judged by a panel of experts including:
Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency
Liz Goodwin, chief executive of the government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
Peter Bonfield, director of the Building Research Establishment (BRE)
Tom Stephenson, head of applied sciences at Cranfield University (a centre of excellence for environmental disciplines)
Peter Stansby of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
For the full list of winners click here.