Speakers
Alan Knight
Commissioner
Sustainable Development Commission & Virgin Group
Alan Knight has nearly 20 years' experience of working on the interface between everyday products and global environmental and social issues.
In 2005 Alan founded Single Planet Living since when he has worked with global and national organisations advising them at board level on global sustainable development issues which affect businesses, society and individuals. He supports senior teams in understanding how their organisations and their products can help people live more sustainable lifestyles, in the long-term ensuring that they have a business which meets future needs.
Alan is probably best known for his ‘if products could talk’ concept which asks businesses whether they would be proud of the products they sell if their environmental and social impacts were taken into consideration.
Since 2005 he has worked with the Virgin Group, Prudential, Barclays, Coca-Cola, Wyevale Garden Centres and Fortnum & Mason.
Before founding Single Planet Living, Alan’s roles included:
- Head of Corporate Sustainability at SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer, where he developed a group-wide framework for sustainable development, covering issues as diverse as water and climate change to HIV/AIDS.
- Head of Social Responsibility for the Kingfisher Group where he co-ordinated social and environmental policies for over 590 stores in 12 countries and worked extensively with supply chains across Asia.
- Head of Sustainability at B&Q plc, the UK’s market leader in DIY and part of the Kingfisher Group. There he became best known for his work on sourcing sustainable timber and developing new techniques for supply chain management.
- He was a founding Director of the Forest Steward Council which now covers over 70 million hectares.
Alan co-chaired the UK Government’s Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption, serves on the UK Sustainable Development Commission and was chair of the Ethical Trading Champions Group of the UK Government’s Food Industry Sustainability Strategy. He was for six years chair of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Consumer Products and the Environment (ACCPE). This committee led to consumer products becoming a central element of DEFRA's policy. The committee's advice directly led to the energy label on cars and in the Homeseller's information pack.
He is also a visiting professor at the School of Management at Southampton University, a fellow of WWF UK, a former director of the Tropical Forest Trust and a current director of the Forest Stewardship Council.
He was awarded the OBE in June 1998 for Services to the Environment and in 2005 the US-based Rainforest Alliance gave him a lifelong award for his contribution to finding solutions to rainforest destruction caused by the timber industry.
Alan was born in 1964 and has a degree in Geology from Southampton University and PhD from London University for his study of marine pollution in St Austell Bay, Cornwall.