Speakers

Jeremy Leggett
CEO
Solar Century

Senior Representative
World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Social entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett is founder and Executive Chairman of Solarcentury, a leading European solar solutions company, and founder and Chairman of SolarAid, a charity set up with Solarcentury profits. He is author of The Carbon War and Half Gone. In a first career as a geologist, he researched the history of oceans, explored for oil, and worked on oil source rocks funded by BP and Shell (1978-89). Increasingly worried by global warming, he left to become an environmental campaigner with Greenpeace International (1989-1996), during which time he won the US Climate Institute’s Award for Advancing Understanding.  Coming to the view that successful green businesses were badly needed in the global struggle to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, he set up Solarcentury, which has expanded into the fastest-growing private energy company of any sort, according to the 2008 Sunday Times Tech Track 100. The company has won multiple awards for innovation and sustainability, and become a magnet for talent. Leggett, described in the Observer as "Britain’s most respected green energy boss," is convenor of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES), members of which include Virgin, Scottish and Southern, Arup, and Yahoo.