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Jonathan Porritt is the blue-blooded environmentalist who has the ear of the establishment – and uses it.  He is responsible for bringing the Green Party out of obscurity and for heading up the charity Forum for the Future.

There is no doubt that Porritt has had an enormously privileged existence, but the great thing about him is that he is prepared to do something with it.  He was born in London, son of Lord Porritt, the 11th Governor of New Zealand and was educated at Oxford.  Having studied law, he spent a short while teaching English in a grammar school.

In the 1970s he became an active member of the UK Ecology Party (now the Green Party) and became its chairman in 1978.  He presided over many of the changes that have put the party firmly in the mainstream since then.

His first book Seeing Green was published in 1984, since which time he has published five more titles – all about green issues and sustainability.  He is also a prominent broadcaster and commentator.

In the 1980s he took over directorship of Friends of the Earth.  And in the 1990s he went on to set up the sustainable development charity Forum for the Future with Paul Ekins and Sarah Parkin.

Porritt continues as an activist and advisor on all things sustainable.  Apart from advising industry and business, he works with individuals as diverse as Prince Charles and Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks and Spencer.  In recent years he was appointed chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, set up by Tony Blair.   He has been a member of the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency since December 1999 and is Co-Director of The Prince of Wales's Business and Environment Programme.

He has recently completed a substantial re-write of his bestselling book Capitalism: As if the world matters, which is due to be published by Earthscan in September 2007.

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