Jonathon Porritt

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Jonathon Espie Porritt, CBE (born 6 July 1950) is a British environmentalist and writer.

He was born in London, and educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. Despite training as a barrister, he decided to become an English teacher in 1975. Porritt appears frequently in the media, writing in magazines, newspapers and books, and appearing on radio and television regularly. Despite being a chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, set up by the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, he has criticised the Labour government on its environmental record.

He was chairman of the UK Ecology Party (now the Green Party) from 1978 to 1984. In 1984 his first book, Seeing Green, was published. In this year he also gave up teaching to become a director of Friends of the Earth in Britain, a post he held until 1990. He acts as advisor to many bodies on environmental matters, as well as to individuals including Prince Charles and Stuart Rose, the chief executive of Marks & Spencer, advising on that company's forward strategy. With Sara Parkin and Paul Ekins in 1996 he founded Forum for the Future, a sustainable development charity. His engagement with business over sustainability and prioritisation of environment over social change characterises the distance between himself and the Green Party from the 1990s onwards. He is a board member of the South West of England Regional Development Agency and Wessex Water.[1]

Porritt is on the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine and the chairman on the UK Sustainable Development Commission.

He is the son of Lord Porritt, 11th Governor-General of New Zealand. As well as receiving a non-hereditary life peerage, Lord Porritt had previously been awarded a baronetcy, a form of hereditary knighthood. Jonathon Porritt may be entitled to claim the baronetcy, becoming Sir Jonathon Porritt, 2nd Baronet, but he has so far declined to do so. [2]. He has two children^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Bibliography

Porritt, Jonathon (1984). Seeing Green: the politics of ecology explained. ISBN 0-631-13893-5.
Porritt, Jonathon (1994). The "Reader's Digest" Good Beach Guide.
Porritt, Jonathon (1995). Liberty and Sustainability: Where One Person's Freedom is Another's Nuisance.
Porritt, Jonathon (2000). Playing Safe: Science and the Environment (Prospects for Tomorrow).
Porritt, Jonathon (2004). Making the Net Work: Sustainable Development in a Digital Society.
Porritt, Jonathon (2006). Capitalism: As If the World Matters. ISBN 1-84407-192-8.